I 



,P^H 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 

Tft^St^ 

©Imp ©optjrigJtt Tfa 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



i486 



Chautauqua Library. .... Garnet Series. 



SELECTED ESSAYS 



JOSEPH ADDISON 



WITH AN INTRODUCTION 



C. T. WINCHESTER, 



PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE IN WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY. 



y<^< of cor 

^N^f WASH"-'- 



BOSTON: 
CHAUTAUQUA PRESS, 

117 FRANKLIN STREET. 
1886. 



T 



Copyright, 1886, 
By RAND, AVERY, & CO. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Introduction i 

I. 
Mr. Spectator and his Paper n 

II. 
Society, Fashions, Minor Morals 30 

III. 
Sir Roger de Coverley 89 

IV. 
Literary and Critical Topics 123 

V. 
Morals and Religion 146 



INTRODUCTION. 



" Born to write, converse, and live with ease." 

In this oft-quoted line, Mr. Pope, with his own 
admirable terseness, has summed up the character of 
his great contemporary Joseph Addison. For Mr. 
Addison seems to have had by nature that most excel- 
lent gift, an even and cheerful temper. One thinks 
of him as wearing a certain calm dignity and decorum 
always. Courteous, urbane, with no angularities of 
character, throughout a long and busy life he seldom 
gave offence to any one ; and when he did give offence 
he offered his enemy no point of attack. And he had 
a good luck to match his good temper. Pensions and 
places he seemed to get without seeking, and to keep 
when everybody else lost them. " I believe Mr. Addi- 
son might be king if he chose/' said Swift once, with a 
twinge of envy. The truth is, however, that Addison's 
good luck, like most good luck, was no mere accident, 
but the result of uniform good sense and good humor. 

He was born on May-day, 1672. His father, Launce- 
lot Addison, was a clergyman of the Church of England, 
and, when young Addison was eleven years of age, was 



2 INTRODUCTION. 

made dean of the cathedral church of Lichfield. Here 
at home, in the quiet deanery under the shadow of the 
great cathedral, the boy early learned that courtesy of 
manner, that interest in the best things of letters, and 
that respect for the grave proprieties of religion, which 
he kept all his days. Richard Steele, who began his 
lifelong friendship with Addison when the two were 
boys together at the Charterhouse School in London, 
wrote years after, in "TheTatler," of good Dean Addi- 
son : " I remember during all my acquaintance but one 
man whom I thought to live with his children in equa- 
nimity and good grace. It was an unspeakable pleas- 
ure to visit or to sit at a meal in that family." 

At Oxford, whither he went in 1687, it seems to have 
been generally thought that Addison would go into 
the Church. His father was a dean, his mother was a 
bishop's sister, and all through his life he seemed very 
like a parson himself; but he could never persuade 
himself to take orders. He passed ten studious though 
leisurely years at the university. He was then fortu- 
nate enough to be sent to the Continent for further 
study, on a pension secured him by the good offices 
of that great Whig statesman, Montague, Lord Halifax. 
But when, in 1702, Queen Anne came to the throne, 
and called the Tory party to power, Addison's pension 
was cancelled, and he was obliged to return to London. 
Thus far his youth had been one of much promise, 
but of little performance. He had written some Latin 
verses that were very good, and some English verses 
that were not very good. On his return from the Con- 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

tinent, he printed a rather dull account of his travels, 
which few people read then, and which nobody reads 
now. He was known to a little circle of the best peo- 
ple ; but when he settled himself in humble lodgings up 
three flights, in the Haymarket, he was dangerously near 
poverty. Every one remembers that famous stroke of 
fortune, two years later, which took Mr. Addison out 
of his obscurity, and introduced him to a career. In 
that year 1704, the Duke of Marlborough won the 
famous victory of Blenheim, and forthwith the little \ 
Whig poets began to sing it. But their verses were so 
atrociously bad that even the minister Godolphin, who 
pretended to little knowledge in such matters, began 
to see that the great triumph was suffering at home for 
want of a poet. In this difficulty he applied to Mon- 
tague, and Montague referred him to Addison. Thus 
it came about that the Right Hon. Henry Boyle, Chan- 
cellor of the Exchequer, is said to have climbed the 
stair to the Haymarket lodgings to invite Mr. Addison 
to write a poem. The poem Mr. Addison wrote at this 
august invitation was thought to be of most surprising 
excellence in his day ; but posterity has hardly con- 
firmed that estimate. One passage in particular, in 
which Marlborough was compared to a destroying 
angel of storm, seems to have captivated the rather 
sluggish imagination of Godolphin, and won for Addi- 
son an appointment to the snug office of commis- 
sioner of appeals. From that time until his death he 
was never out of political life. In 1 706 he was made 
under-secretary of state ; next year, elected to Parlia- 



4 INTRODUCTION. 

ment ; next year, appointed chief secretary for Ireland. 
When the Whigs went out of power in 1710, he lost 
his employments, but he kept his seat in Parliament. 
After the death of Queen Anne in 17 14, he went to 
Ireland again as secretary, and not long before his 
death reached his highest political dignity as secretary 
of state. It was a career of uninterrupted success. 

But it is not his political work that gives Addison 
his fame. In 1 709 Richard Steele made that happiest 
venture in the history of our literature, — he established 
"The Tatler." Addison joined his old friend as a con- 
tributor to "The Tatler" with its eighteenth number, 
and soon became an indispensable auxiliary. " When 
once I had called him in," said Steele generously, " I 
could not subsist without dependence on him." " The 
Tatler" came suddenly to an end in January, 1711 ; 
and on the 1st of March following, the two friends began 
that now more famous paper, "The Spectator." "The 
Spectator" continued daily, with ever-increasing suc- 
cess, until Dec. 6, 171 2 ; and a later series, under the 
sole conduct of Addison, was issued during the latter 
half of the year 1714. The remarkable success of these 
charming papers had established the reputation of 
Addison as. the greatest living master of English prose, 
when in 1713 he crowned his fame by writing the drama 
of " Cato." To most readers of to-day, the " Cato " 
seems little better than a series of sonorous declama- 
tions, without movement and without characters. But 
those who read and heard it in 1713 were not of that 
way of thinking. It was acted every week-night for a 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

month, and all the town flocked to see it. " Cato was 
not so much the wonder of Rome in his day as he is of 
Britain in ours," writes Mr. Pope. The critics, too, vied 
with the playgoers in their admiration, and declared 
that at last we had in England a " correct " play, based 
on classical models. 

With the "Cato," Addison touched the highest point 
of all his greatness. The second series of " The Spec- 
tator " and " The Freeholder" — a somewhat similar 
paper which he conducted for some months in the 
year 1 715-16 — sustained but hardly increased his fame. 
From 1 713 until his death he was the acknowledged 
head of the little world of letters, the authority and 
oracle of the wits. He set up an old servant of his, 
one Buttons, as keeper of a coffee-house in Russell 
Street ; and there Mr. Spectator reigned, 

" And gave his little senate laws." 

There was only one voice to break the general accord 
of admiration for the great writer and the genial friend. 
The story of that memorable rupture between Pope 
and Addison is too long to be recited here. Mr. 
Addison seems sometimes, it must be confessed, to have 
worn towards his rivals a placid air of superiority that 
might have been very irritating ; yet it has been gener- 
ally agreed that in this quarrel it was not the bland 
Spectator, but the envious poet, that was most at fault. 
The last days of Addison were passed in the dignified 
retirement of Holland House. For in 1716, after a 
very assiduous courtship, he had married the great lady 



6 INTRODUCTION. 

to whom that great house belonged, the Countess dow- 
ager of Warwick. It is to be feared that Mr. Spectator 
in those last days would sometimes have preferred the 
dinner of herbs at the club ; for, unless all reports are 
false, he must often have found at Holland House 
something too much of that society which the experi- 
ence of Solomon pronounced worse than a continual 
dropping in a very rainy day. " She married him," 
says Johnson with a wicked chuckle, " on terms much 
like those on which a Turkish princess is espoused, 
to whom the Sultan is reported to pronounce, ' Daugh- 
ter, I give thee this man for thy slave.' " 

" Marrying discord in a noble wife," 

was Pope's last fling at his rival. He did not long 
enjoy the fortune — good or bad — that he had won. 
His health failed in 171 7, and he died June 17, 1719. 
He had many friends among those people whose 
friendship was best worth having ; and no man in Eng- 
land had fewer enemies. 

It is not too much to say that Addison is the founder 
of modern popular English prose style. He introduced 
in the "Tatler" and "Spectator" a prose, which, to 
use the apt though oft-quoted words of Johnson, was 
>liiamiliar but not coarse, elegant but not ostentatious." 
Before him, we have in the writings of such men as 
Sir Thomas Browne or Jeremy Taylor, or Fuller and 
Walton, a prose eloquent, or poetic, or quaint. Dryden 
had written a clear and vigorous prose, but only on 
critical subjects, and for scholarly readers. But about 



INTRODUCTION. 7 

the beginning of the eighteenth century, a new read- 
ing public demanded a new kind of reading. There 
had grown up a large trading middle class, intelligent, 
active, curious. Politically this class was every day 
becoming more powerful ; both parties were bidding 
for its support; and now that the enormous growth 
of London had drawn together large numbers of this 
class, within easy reach of the journalist, it was found 
that the pamphlet of Defoe or Swift was a far more 
effective political instrument than any speech shut up 
within the walls of St. Stephen's. Furthermore, with 
the growth of town life in Queen Anne's reign, there was 
a great increase of interest in all social matters. Good 
society began to talk about itself. The gossip of the 
clubs, the last opera, the fashion or the whim of the day, 
— these things now began to find their way into litera- 
ture. In such circumstances we have, for the first time, 
a clear, vigorous, popular prose. Defoe and Steele 
were already writing such a prose : to Addison was re- 
served the credit of seeing that this prose was capable 
of artistic treatment. That minute care, that trained 
skill, which had hitherto been reserved for poetry, he 
bestowed upon his prose papers. He saw that the 
gravest truths of society and morals gain a new per- 
suasiveness from the graces of style. He saw, also, 
that in the new vein of satire upon the minor moralities 
of society, which his friend Steele had opened in " The 
Tatler," there was opportunity for the nice taste, the 
delicate fancy, the refined humor, which can raise to 
the rank of literature a dainty essay upon a fan or a 



8 INTRODUCTIONS 

ruffle. He was the first Englishman to write a prose 
easy, idiomatic, popular, and at the same time highly 
finished. Their graceful rhythm, ingenious illustration, 
nice taste, and delightful humor combine to make 
Addison's best papers models of familiar composition. 
Of their sort, what have we had since that is better? 

Addison's contributions to the " Spectator " and 
"Tatler " may be grouped, according to their subjects, 
in three classes, — critical, ethical, and social. The 
first two classes have, it must be confessed, little in- 
terest for most readers of to-day. Some of the more 
elaborate critical papers, especially those upon Milton's 
" Paradise Lost," were accounted very remarkable efforts 
in their own age, and are still sometimes spoken of in 
admiration — generally by those who have never read 
them. But the truth is, Addison's criticism is thoroughly 
conventional. He gravely sets out to pi-ove that the 
" Paradise Lost " is a great poem, because it conforms 
to certain external laws of structure. Of what is origi- 
nal in any book, its spiritual vitality and power, such 
a criticism can tell us very little. If we read any of 
Addison's critical papers now, it is only those in lighter 
vein, which touch some contemporary phase of taste or 
language. 

Nor are the moral and religious papers (which usu- 
ally appeared on Saturdays) likely to fare much better 
with the modern reader. Mr. Spectator's sermons, 
short as they are, do sometimes make us yawn. They 
are all aimed at the head rather than at the heart, being 
designed to show the reasonableness of a religious life ; 



INTRODUCTION. 9 

but, somehow, they do not seem to touch the doubts 
and difficulties of these modern days, while their con- 
stant parade of prudential motives is not very in- 
spiring. The best papers in this class are those in 
which a train of grave and earnest thought seems to 
rise unconsciously out of the narrative, as in that most 
impressive essay on Westminster Abbey — perhaps the 
most finished passage in " The Spectator." It is a calm 
and cheerful religion Mr. Addison has to recommend ; 
and Mr. Addison practised it himself. He would link 
religion with all the fair humanities of life, and add the 
charm of a rational piety to the manifold graces of 
culture and of art. 

But it is in the third class of papers that we shall 
find Addison's best and most enduring work. These 
social papers on manners, fashions, minor morals, are 
among the highest examples of lighter prose satire in 
our own or any language. In them Addison's quick 
perception, his fertility of invention, his suavity of 
manner, and his delightful vein of humor are all seen 
at their best. These papers moreover, even while they 
seem only to play lightly among the whims and follies 
of society, reveal a profound insight into character, and 
are instinct with that broad and gracious human sym- 
pathy which marks the greatest masters. For Addison's 
humor is eminently a good humor ; never cynical, and 
never idle, but springing from wise and healthy moral 
feeling. His sense of the ethical value of manners 
gives a certain grave humanity to his writing ; however 
brilliant his pleasantry may be, it is never merely flip- 



10 INTRODUCTION, 

pant. But, on the other hand, he is never insistent 
with his morality, and he is never dull. His best 
papers of this sort have a delicacy, a lightness of touch, 
that comes only of excellent taste. It is so fatally 
easy in writing upon such matters, to be too much in 
earnest, and to pass that line which separates well-bred 
raillery and gossip from loud banter on the one side, 
and preaching on the other. But Addison never loses 
the graceful urbanity of a courteous Spectator. He 
keeps you smiling, but he never laughs aloud ; and al- 
though there is a deal of sense and goodness under the 
bland humor of this kindly observer, yet he never bores 
you with it. To read Addison's best papers is to take 
a lesson in good manners as well as in good literature. 
He has not the imagination, largeness, intensity, of 
the greatest writers ; but he is certainly among the most 
pleasing. A man who united in a very high degree 
goodness and good-nature \ who did more than any 
one else to popularize an English style at once familiar 
and elegant ; who in a delightful variety of social satire 
showed a grace, urbanity, and humor never since sur- 
passed ; and who gave us at least one character, Sir 
Roger de Coverley, as familiar to us as any other in 
fiction, — this is the high praise that posterity accords 
to Joseph Addison. 



READINGS FROM ADDISON. 



MR. SPECTATOR AND HIS PAPER. 
I. MR. SPECTATOR HIMSELF. 

I have observed that a reader seldom peruses a 
book with pleasure, until he knows whether the writer 
of it be a black or a fair man, of a mild or choleric dis- 
position, married or a bachelor, with other particulars 
of the like nature, that conduce very much to the right 
understanding of an author. To gratify this curiosity, 
which is so natural to a reader, I design this paper, 
and my next, as prefatory discourses to my following 
writings, and shall give some account in them of the 
several persons that are engaged in this work. As the 
chief trouble of compiling, digesting, and correcting 
will fall to my share, I must do myself the justice to 
open the work with my own history. 

I was born to a small hereditary estate, which, ac- 
cording to the tradition of the village where it lies, was 
bounded by the same hedges and ditches in William 



12 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

the Conqueror's time that it is at present, and has 
been delivered down from father to son whole and 
entire, without the loss or acquisition of a single field 
or meadow, during the space of six hundred years. 
There runs a story in the family, that when my mother 
was gone with child of me about three months, she 
dreamed that she was brought to bed of a judge : 
whether this might proceed from a lawsuit which was 
then depending in the family, or my father's being a 
justice of the peace, I cannot determine ; for I am not 
so vain as to think it presaged any dignity that I should 
arrive at in my future life, though that was the interpre- 
tation which the neighborhood put upon it. The gravity 
of my behavior at my very first appearance in the world, 
and all the time that I sucked, seemed to favor my 
mother's dream ; for, as she has often told me, I threw 
away my rattle before I was two months old, and 
would not make use of my coral until they had taken 
away the bells from it. 

As for the rest of my infancy, there being nothing 
in it remarkable, I shall pass it over in silence. I find 
that during my nonage, I had the reputation of a very 
sullen youth, but was always a favorite of my school- 
master, who used to say that my parts were solid, and 
would wear well. I had not been long at the university, 
before I distinguished myself by a most profound 
silence ; for during the space of eight years, excepting 
in the public exercises of the college, I scarce uttered 
the quantity of an hundred words ; and indeed do not 
remember that I ever spoke three sentences together 



MR. SPECTATOR AND HIS PAPER. 1 3 

in my whole life. Whilst I was in this learned body I 
applied myself with so much diligence to my studies, 
that there are very few celebrated books, either in 
the learned or the modern tongues, which I am not 
acquainted with. 

Upon the death of my father, I was resolved to 
travel into foreign countries, and therefore left the 
university, with the character of an odd, unaccountable 
fellow, that had a great deal of learning, if I would but 
show it. An insatiable thirst after knowledge carried 
me into all the countries of Europe, in which there was 
any thing new or strange to be seen; nay, to such a 
degree was my curiosity raised, that, having read the 
controversies of some great men concerning the anti- 
quities of Egypt, I made a voyage to Grand Cairo, on 
purpose to take the measure of a pyramid ; and, as 
soon as I had set myself right in that particular, 
returned to my native country with great satisfaction. 

I have passed my latter years in this city, where I 
am frequently seen in most public places, though there 
are not above half a dozen of my select friends that 
know me ; of whom my next paper shall give a more 
particular account. There is no place of general re- 
sort, wherein I do not often make my appearance. 
Sometimes I am seen thrusting my head into a round 
of politicians at Will's, x and listening with great atten- 
tion to the narratives that are made in those little 

1 The coffee-houses mentioned here had each its distinctive character. 
Will's was the resort of wits, and men of letters; Child's, of the clergy; St. 
James's, of Whig politicians ; the Grecian, of scholars ; the Cocoa-tree, of Tory 
politicians; and Jonathan's, of stock-jobbers. 



14 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

circular audiences. Sometimes I smoke a pipe at 
Child's, and, whilst I seem attentive to nothing but the 
postman, overhear the conversation of every table in 
the room. I appear on Sunday nights at St. James's 
coffee-house, and sometimes join the little committee 
of politics in the inner room, as one who comes there 
to hear and improve. My face is likewise very well 
known at the Grecian, the Cocoa- tree, and in the thea- 
tres both of Drury Lane and the Haymarket. I have 
been taken for a merchant upon the exchange for above 
these ten years, and sometimes pass for a Jew in the 
assembly of stock-jobbers at Jonathan's. In short, 
wherever I see a cluster of people, I always mix with 
them, though I never open my lips but in my own club. 
Thus I live in the world rather as a spectator of 
mankind, than as one of the species ; by which means 
I have made myself a speculative statesman, soldier, 
merchant, and artisan, without ever meddling with any 
practical part in life. I am very well versed in the 
theory of a husband or a father, and can discern the 
errors in the economy, business, and diversion of others, 
better than those who are engaged in them ; as standers- 
by discover blots, which are apt to escape those who 
are in the game. I never espoused any party with 
violence, and am resolved to observe an exact neu- 
trality between the Whigs and Tories, unless I shall be 
forced to declare myself by the hostilities of either side. 
In short, I have acted in all the parts of my life as a 
looker-on, which is the character I intend to preserve 
in this paper. 



MR. SPECTATOR AND HIS PAPER. 1 5 

I have given the reader just so much of my history 
and character as to let him see I am not altogether 
unqualified for the business I have undertaken. As 
for other particulars in my life and adventures, I shall 
insert them in following papers, as I shall see occasion. 
In the mean time, when I consider how much I have 
seen, read, and heard, I begin to blame my own taci- 
turnity ; and since I have neither time nor inclination 
to communicate the fulness of my heart in speech, I 
am resolved to do it in writing, and to print myself 
out, if possible, before I die. I have been often told 
by my friends, that it is a pity so many useful discov- 
eries which I have made should be in the possession 
of a silent man. For this reason, therefore, I shall 
publish a sheet-full of thoughts every morning, for 
the benefit of my contemporaries ; and if I can any 
way contribute to the diversion or improvement of the 
country in which I live, I shall leave it, when I am 
summoned out of it, with the secret satisfaction of 
thinking that I have not lived in vain. 

There are three very material points which I have 
not spoken to in this paper; and which, for several 
important reasons, I must keep to myself, at least for 
some time : I mean, an account of my name, my age, 
and my lodgings. I must confess, I would gratify my 
reader in any thing that is reasonable ; but as for these 
three particulars, though I am sensible they might tend 
very much to the embellishment of my paper, I can- 
not yet come to a resolution of communicating them 
to the public. They would indeed draw me out of that 



l6 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

obscurity which I have enjoyed for many years, and 
expose me in public places to several salutes and civili- 
ties which have been always very disagreeable to me ; 
for the greatest pain I can suffer is the being talked 
to, and being stared at. It is for this reason, likewise, 
that I keep my complexion and dress as very great 
secrets ; though it is not impossible but I may make 
discoveries of both in the progress of the work I have 
undertaken. 

After having been thus particular upon myself, I 
shall in to-morrow's paper give an account of those 
gentlemen who are concerned with me in this work ; 
for, as I have before intimated, a plan of it is laid and 
concerted, as all other matters of importance are, in a 
club. However, as my friends have engaged me to 
stand in the front, those who have a mind to corre- 
spond with me may direct their letters to The Specta- 
tor, at Mr. Buckley's, in Little Britain. For I must 
further acquaint the reader, that, though our club meets 
only on Tuesdays and Thursdays, we have appointed a 
committee to sit every night, for the inspection of all 
such papers as may contribute to the advancement of 
the public weal. — Spectator, No. I. 

2. MR. SPECTATOR RECOMMENDS HIS PAPER. 

It is with much satisfaction that I hear this great 
city inquiring, day by day, after these my papers, and 
receiving my morning lectures with a becoming seri- 
ousness and attention. My publisher tells me that 
there are already three thousand of them distributed 



MR. SPECTATOR AND HIS PAPER. I? 

every day ; so that, if I allow twenty readers to every 
paper, which I look upon as a modest computation, 
I may reckon about threescore thousand disciples in 
London and Westminster, who I hope will take care 
to distinguish themselves from the thoughtless herd of 
their ignorant and unattentive brethren. Since I have 
raised myself to so great an audience, I shall spare no 
pains to make their instruction agreeable, and their 
diversion useful. For which reasons I shall endeavor 
to enliven morality with wit, and to temper wit with 
morality, that my readers may, if possible, both ways 
find their account in the speculation of the day. And 
to the end that their virtue and discretion may not be 
short, transient, intermitting starts of thought, I have 
resolved to refresh their memories from day to day 
till I have recovered them out of that desperate state 
of vice and folly into which the age is fallen. The 
mind that lies fallow but a single day sprouts up in 
follies that are only to be killed by a constant and 
assiduous culture. It was said of Socrates, that he 
brought philosophy down from heaven to inhabit 
among men ; and I shall be ambitious to have it said 
of me, that I have brought philosophy out of closets 
and libraries, schools and colleges, to dwell in clubs 
and assemblies, at tea-tables, and in coffee-houses. 

I would therefore, in a very particular manner, rec- 
ommend these my speculations to all well-regulated 
families, that set apart an hour in every morning for 
tea and bread and butter ; and would earnestly advise 
them, for their good, to order this paper to be punc- 



1 8 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

tually served up, and to be looked upon as a part of 
the tea-equipage. 

Sir Francis Bacon observes, that a well-written book, 
compared with its rivals and antagonists, is like Moses' 
serpent, that immediately swallowed up and devoured 
those of the Egyptians. I shall not be so vain as to 
think that where The Spectator appears, the other pub- 
lic prints will vanish : but shall leave it to my reader's 
consideration, whether it is not much better to be let 
into the knowledge of one's self, than to hear what 
passes in Muscovy or Poland ; and to amuse ourselves 
with such writings as tend to the wearing out of igno- 
rance, passion, and prejudice, than such as naturally 
conduce to inflame hatreds, and make enmities irrec- 
oncilable. - 

In the next place, I would recommend this paper to 
the daily perusal of those gentlemen, whom I cannot 
but consider as my good brothers and allies, I mean 
the fraternity of spectators, who live in the world with- 
out having any thing to do in it ; and either by the 
affluence of their fortunes, or laziness of their disposi- 
tions, have no other business with the rest of man- 
kind but to look upon them. Under this class of men 
are comprehended all contemplative tradesmen, titular 
physicians, fellows of the Royal Society, Templars that 
are not given to be contentious, and statesmen that 
are out of business ; in short, every one that considers 
the world as a' theatre, and desires to form a right 
judgment of those who are the actors on it. 

There is another set of men that I must likewise lay 



MR, SPECTATOR AND HIS PAPER. 1 9 

a claim to, whom I have lately called the blanks of 
society, as being altogether unfurnished with ideas till 
the business and conversation of the day has supplied 
them. I have often considered these poor souls with 
an eye of great commiseration, when I have heard 
them asking the first man they have met with, whether 
there was any news stirring ? and, by that means, gath- 
ering together materials for thinking. These needy 
persons do not know what to talk of till about twelve 
o'clock in the morning; for, by that time, they are 
pretty good judges of the weather, know which way 
the wind sits, and whether the Dutch mail be come in. 
As they lie at the mercy of the first man they meet, 
and are grave or impertinent all the day long, accord- 
ing to the notions which they have imbibed in the 
morning, I would earnestly entreat them not to stir 
out of their chambers till they have read this paper, 
and do promise them that I will daily instil into them 
such sound and wholesome sentiments as shall have 
a good effect on their conversation for the ensuing 
twelve hours. 

But there are none to whom this paper will be more 
useful than to the female world. I have often thought 
there has not been sufficient pains taken in finding out 
proper employments and diversions for the fair ones. 
Their amusements seem contrived for them, rather as 
they are women, than as they are reasonable creatures, 
and are more adapted to the sex than to the species. 
The toilet is their great scene of business, and the 
right adjusting of their hair the principal employment 



20 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

of their lives. The sorting of a suit of ribbons is 
reckoned a very good morning's work ; and if they 
make an excursion to a mercer's or a toy-shop, so great 
a fatigue makes them unfit for any thing else all the 
day after. Their more serious occupations are sewing 
and embroidery, and their greatest drudgery the prep- 
aration of jellies and sweetmeats. This, I say, is the 
state of ordinary women ; though I know there are 
multitudes of those of a more elevated life and con- 
versation, that move in an exalted sphere of knowledge 
and virtue, that join all the beauties of the mind to 
the ornaments of dress, and inspire a kind of awe and 
respect, as well as love, into their male beholders. I 
hope to increase the number of these by publishing 
this daily paper, which I shall always endeavor to 
make an innocent, if not an improving entertainment, 
and by that means at least divert the minds of my 
female readers from greater trifles. At the same time, 
as I would fain give some finishing touches to those 
which are already the most beautiful pieces of human 
nature, I shall endeavor to point out all those imper- 
fections that are the blemishes, as well as those virtues 
which are the embellishments, of the sex. In the 
mean while I hope these my gentle readers, who have 
so much time on their hands, will not grudge throw- 
ing away a quarter of an hour in a day on this paper, 
since they may do it without any hinderance to busi- 
ness. 

I know several of my friends and well-wishers are 
in great pain for me, lest I should not be able to keep 



MR. SPECTATOR AND HIS PAPER. 21 

up the spirit of a paper which I oblige myself to fur- 
nish every day ; but to make them easy in this partic- 
ular, I will promise them faithfully to give it over as 
soon as I grow dull. This I know will be matter of 
great raillery to the small wits ; who will frequently 
put me in mind of my promise, desire me to keep my 
word, assure me that it is high time to give over, with 
many other little pleasantries of the like nature, which 
men of a little smart genius cannot forbear throwing 
out against their best friends, when they have such a 
handle given them of being witty. But let them re- 
member that I do hereby enter my caveat against this 
piece of raillery. — Spectator, No. 10. 

3. THE CLUB DISCUSS THE PAPER. 

The club of which I am a member is very luckily 
composed of such persons as are engaged in different 
ways of life, and deputed as it were out of the most 
conspicuous classes of mankind : by this means I am 
furnished with the greatest variety of hints and mate- 
rials, and know every thing that passes in the different 
quarters and divisions, not only of this great city, but 
of the whole kingdom. My readers too have the sat- 
isfaction to find, that there is no rank or degree among 
them who have not their representative in this club, 
and that there is always somebody present who will 
take care of their respective interests, that nothing may 
be written or published to the prejudice or infringe- 
ment of their just rights and privileges. 

I last night sat very late in company with this select 



22 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

body of friends, who entertained me with several re- 
marks which they and others had made upon these my 
speculations, as also with the various success which they 
had met with among their several ranks and degrees of 
readers. Will Honeycomb told me, in the softest man- 
ner he could, that there were some ladies (but for your 
comfort, says Will, they are not those of the most wit) 
that were offended at the liberties I had taken with the 
opera and the puppet-show ; that some of them were 
likewise very much surprised, that I should think such 
serious points as the dress and equipage of persons of 
quality, proper subjects for raillery. 

He was going on, when Sir Andrew Freeport took 
him up short, and told him that the papers he hinted 
at had done great good in the city, and that all their 
wives and daughters were the better for them; and 
further added, that the whole city thought themselves 
very much obliged to me for declaring my generous 
intentions to scourge vice and folly as they appear in 
a multitude, without condescending to be a publisher 
of particular intrigues. " In short," says Sir Andrew, 
" if you avoid that foolish beaten road of falling upon 
aldermen and citizens, and employ your pen upon the 
vanity and luxury of courts, your paper must needs be 
of general use." 

Upon this, my friend the Templar told Sir Andrew, 
that he wondered to hear a man of his sense talk after 
that manner ; that the city had always been the prov- 
ince for satire ; and that the wits of King Charles's 
time jested upon nothing else during his whole reign. 



MR. SPECTATOR AND HIS PAPER. 2$ 

He then showed, by the examples of Horace, Juvenal, 
Boileau, and the best writers of every age, that the 
follies of the stage and court had never been accounted 
too sacred for ridicule, how great soever the persons 
might be that patronized them. " But after all," says 
he, " I think your raillery has made too great an ex- 
cursion in attacking several persons of the Inns of 
Court ; and I do not believe you can show me any 
precedent for your behavior in that particular." 

My good friend Sir Roger de Coverley, who had said 
nothing all this while, began his speech with a pish ! 
and told us that he wondered to see so many men of 
sense so very serious upon fooleries. " Let our good 
friend," says he, " attack every one that deserves it : 
I would only advise you, Mr. Spectator," applying 
himself to me, " to take care how you meddle with 
country squires : they are the ornaments of the Eng- 
lish nation ; men of good heads and sound bodies ! 
And let me tell you, some of them take it ill of 
you, that you mention fox-hunters with so little 
respect." 

Captain Sentry spoke very sparingly on this occa- 
sion. What he said was only to commend my prudence 
in not touching upon the army, and advised me to 
continue to act discreetly in that point. 

By this time I found every subject of my specula- 
tions was taken away from me, by one or other of the 
club ; and began to think myself in the condition of 
the good man that had one wife who took a dislike to 
his gray hairs, and another to his black, till by their 



24 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

picking out what each of them had an aversion to, 
they left his head altogether bald and naked. 

While I was thus musing with myself, my worthy 
friend the clergyman, who, very luckily for me, was at 
the club that night, undertook my cause. He told us 
that he wondered any order of persons should think 
themselves too considerable to be advised ; that it was 
not quality, but innocence, which exempted men from 
reproof; that vice and folly ought to be attacked 
wherever they could be met with, and especially when 
they were placed in high and conspicuous stations of 
life. He further added, that my paper would only 
serve to aggravate the pains of poverty, if it chiefly 
exposed those who are already depressed, and in some 
measure turned into ridicule, by the meanness of their 
conditions and circumstances. He afterwards pro- 
ceeded to take notice of the great use this paper 
might be of to the public, by reprehending those vices 
which are too trivial for the chastisement of the law, 
and too fantastical for the cognizance, of the pulpit. 
He then advised me to prosecute my undertaking with 
cheerfulness ; and assured me, that, whoever might be 
displeased with me, I should be approved by all those 
whose praises do honor to the persons on whom they 
are bestowed. 

The whole club pays a particular deference to the 
discourse of this gentleman, and are drawn into what 
he says as much by the candid ingenuous manner with 
which he delivers himself, as by the strength of argu- 
ment and force of reason which he makes use of. Will 



MR. SPECTATOR AND HIS PAPER. 2$ 

Honeycomb immediately agreed, that what he had 
said was right ; and that, for his part, he would not 
insist upon the quarter which he had demanded for 
the ladies. Sir Andrew gave up the city with the same 
frankness. The Templar would not stand out ; and 
was followed by Sir Roger and the captain ; who all 
agreed that I should be at liberty to carry the war into 
what quarter I pleased, provided I continued to com- 
bat with criminals in a body, and to assault the vice 
without hurting the person. 

This debate which was held for the good of man- 
kind put me in mind of that which the Roman trium- 
virate were formerly engaged in for their destruction. 
Every man at first stood hard for his friend, till they 
found that by this means they should spoil their pro- 
scription ; and at last, making a sacrifice of all their 
acquaintance and relations, furnished out a very decent 
execution. 

Having thus taken my resolutions to march on 
boldly in the cause of virtue and good sense, and to 
annoy their adversaries in whatever degree or rank of 
men they may be found, I shall be deaf for the future 
to all the remonstrances that shall be made to me on 
this account. If Punch grows extravagant, I shall 
reprimand him very freely : if the stage becomes a 
nursery of folly and impertinence, I shall not be afraid 
to animadvert upon it. In short, if I meet with any 
thing in city, court, or country, that shocks modesty 
or good manners, I shall use my utmost endeavors to 
make an example of it. I must, however, entreat 



26 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

every particular person who does me the honor to be 
a reader of this paper, never to think himself, or any 
one of his friends or enemies, aimed at in what is said : 
for I promise him never to draw a faulty character 
which does not fit at least a thousand people \ or to 
publish a single paper that is not written in the spirit 
of benevolence, and with a love to mankind. — Specta- 
tor, No, 34. 

4. THE HALFPENNY STAMP RAISES THE PRICE OF THE 
SPECTATOR. 

I find, by several letters which I receive daily, that 
many of my readers would be better pleased to pay 
three halfpence for my paper than twopence. 1 The 
ingenious T. W. tells me that I have deprived him of 
the best part of his breakfast, for that since the rise of 
my paper he is forced every morning to drink his dish 
of coffee by itself without the addition of " The Specta- 
tor," that used to be better than lace to it. Eugenius 
informs me very obligingly that he never thought he 
should have disliked any passage in my paper, but that 
of late there have been two words in every one of 
them which he could heartily wish left out ; viz., " Price 
Twopence." I have a letter from a soap-boiler, who 
condoles with me very affectionately upon the neces- 

1 On the 1st of August, 1712, a halfpenny stamp was imposed on "every 
pamphlet or paper contained in a half-sheet or any lesser piece of paper." 
This extinguished at once a considerable number of penny political journals: 
it was the season of" the fall of the leaf," as Addison wittily said in his first 
paper after the rise in price. All the other surviving journals raised their 
price just the cost of the stamp; but The Spectator put on a whole penny, and 
prospered more than ever. 



MR. SPECTATOR AND HIS PAPER. 2? 

sity we both lie under of setting an higher price on our 
commodities, since the late tax has been laid upon 
them, and desiring me, when I write next on that sub- 
ject, to speak a word or two upon the duties upon 
Castle soap. But there is none of these my corre- 
spondents, who writes with a greater turn of good sense 
and elegance of expression, than the generous Philo- 
medes, who advises me to value every " Spectator " at 
sixpence, and promises that he himself will engage 
for above a hundred of his acquaintance, who shall 
take it in at that price. 

Letters from the female world are likewise come to 
me, in great quantities, upon the same occasion ; and 
as I naturally bear a great deference to this part of 
our species, I am very glad to find that those who 
approve my conduct in this particular are much more 
numerous than those who condemn it. A large family 
of daughters have drawn me up a very handsome re- 
monstrance, in which they set forth, that, their father 
having refused to take in "The Spectator" since the ad- 
ditional price was set upon it, they offered him unani- 
mously to bate him the article of bread and butter in 
the tea-table account, provided " The Spectator" might 
be served up to them every morning as usual. Upon 
this the old gentleman, being pleased it seems with their 
desire of improving themselves, has granted them the 
continuance both of " The Spectator " and their bread 
and butter, having given particular orders that the tea- 
table shall be set forth every morning with its custom- 
ary bill of fare, and without any manner of defalcation. 



28 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

I thought myself obliged to mention this particular, 
as it does honor to this worthy gentleman ; and if the 
young lady Lsetitia, who sent me this account, will 
acquaint me with his name, I will insert it at length 
in one of my papers, if he desires it. 

I should be very glad to find out any expedient 
that might alleviate the expense which this my paper 
brings to any of my readers ; and, in order to it, must 
propose two points to their consideration. First, that 
if they retrench any, tlfe smallest particular in their 
ordinary expense, it will easily make up the halfpenny 
a day which we have now under consideration. Let 
a lady sacrifice but a single ribbon to her morning 
studies, and it will be sufficient ; let a family burn but 
a candle a night less than their usual number, and 
they may take in " The Spectator " without detriment 
to their private affairs. 

In the next place, if my readers will not go to the 
price of buying my papers by retail, let them have 
patience, and they may buy them in the lump without 
the burden of a tax upon them. My speculations, 
when they are sold single like cherries upon the stick, 
are delights for the rich and wealthy ; after some time 
they come to market in greater quantities, and are 
every ordinary man's money. The truth of it is, they 
have a certain flavor at their first appearance, from 
several accidental circumstances of time, place, and 
person, which they may lose if they are not taken 
early ; but in this case every reader is to consider, 
whether it is not better for him to be half a year 



MR. SPECTATOR AND HIS PAPER. 29 

behindhand with the fashionable and polite part of the 
world, than to strain himself beyond his circumstances. 
My bookseller has now about ten thousand of the third 
and fourth volumes, which he has ready to publish, 
having already disposed of as large an edition both of 
the first and second volumes. As he is a person whose 
head is very well turned for his business, he thinks 
they would be a very proper present to be made to 
persons at christenings, marriages, visiting-days, and 
the like joyful solemnities, as several other books are 
frequently given at funerals. He has printed them in 
such a little portable volume, that many of them may 
be ranged together upon a single plate ; and is of 
opinion that a salver of " Spectators " would be as 
acceptable an entertainment to the ladies, as a salver 
of sweetmeats. — Spectator \ No. 488. 



30 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 



II. 
SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. 
5. THE TULIP MANIA. 1 

I chanced to rise very early one particular morning 
this summer, and took a walk into the country to di- 
vert myself among the fields and meadows, while the 
green was new, and the flowers in their bloom. As at 
this season of the year every lane is a beautiful walk, 
and every hedge full of nosegays, I lost myself with a 
great deal of pleasure among several thickets and 
bushes that were filled with a great variety of birds, 
and an agreeable confusion of notes, which formed 
the pleasantest scene in the world to me who had 
passed a whole winter in noise and smoke. The fresh- 
ness of the dews that lay upon every thing about me, 
with the cool breath of the morning, which inspired 
the birds with so many delightful instincts, created in 

1 A little after the middle of the seventeenth century, there was a rage for 
tulips in England. The bulbs were mostly grown in Holland, and sold for 
fabulous prices. Dealing in them became a kind of speculation: and tulips 
were bought and sold on the exchange, as stocks are now, without changing 
hands at all. As much as a thousand pounds has been paid for a single tulip- 
bulb. The Dutch government finally passed a law that no more than two 
hundred francs (forty dollars) should be charged for one bulb. By the time 
Addison was writing, the fever had much abated ; yet fancy varieties still 
brought fancy prices, and it is probable the gardener did not much exaggerate 
the cost of his dish of soup. 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS, 3 1 

me the same kind of animal pleasure, and made my 
heart overflow with such secret emotions of joy and 
satisfaction as are not to be described or accounted 
for. On this occasion, I could not but reflect upon a 
beautiful simile in Milton : — 

"As one who long in populous city pent, 
Where houses thick, and sewers, annoy the air, 
Forth issuing on a summer's morn, to breathe 
Among the pleasant villages, and farms 
Adjoined, from each thing met conceives delight ; 
The smell of grain, or tedded grass, or kine, 
Or dairy, each rural sight, each rural sound." 

Those who are conversant in the writings of polite 
authors receive an additional entertainment from the 
country, as it revives in their memories those charming 
descriptions with which such authors do frequently 
abound. 

I was thinking of the foregoing beautiful simile in 
Milton, and applying it to myself, when I observed to 
the windward of me a black cloud falling to the earth 
in long trails of rain, which made me betake myself 
for shelter to a house which I saw at a little distance 
from the place where I was walking. As I sat in the 
porch, I heard the voices of two or three persons, who 
seemed very earnest in discourse. My curiosity was 
. raised when I heard the names of Alexander the Great 
and Artaxerxes ; and as their talk seemed to run on 
ancient heroes, I concluded there could not be any 
secret in it ; for which reason I thought I might very 
fairly listen to what they said. 



32 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

After several parallels between great men, which 
appeared to me altogether groundless and chimerical,/' 
I was surprised to hear one say, " That he valued the 
Black Prince more than the Duke of Vendosme." 
How the Duke of Vendosme should become a rival 
of the Black Prince's, I could not conceive ; and was 
more startled, when I heard a second affirm with great 
vehemence, "That if the Emperor of Germany was 
not going off he should like him better than either of 
them. ,, He added, " That though the season was so 
changeable, the Duke of Marlborough was in bloom- 
ing beauty." 

I was wondering to myself from whence they had 
received this odd intelligence, especially when I heard 
them mention the names of several other great gen- 
erals, as the Prince of Hesse, and the King of Sweden, 
who, they said, were both running away. To which 
they added, what I entirely agreed with them in, 
" That the Crown of France was very weak, but that 
the Marshal Villars still kept his colors." At last one 
of them told the company, " If they would go along 
with him, he would show them a Chimney Sweeper 
and a Painted Lady in the same bed, which he was 
sure would very much please them." The shower 
which had driven them, as well as myself, into the 
house, was now over ; and as they were passing by me 
into the garden, I asked them to let me be one of their 
company. 

The gentleman of the house told me, " If I delighted 
in flowers, it would be worth my while, for that he be- 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. 33 

lieved he could show me such a blow of tulips as was 
not to be matched in the whole country." 

I accepted the offer, and immediately found that 
they had been talking in terms of gardening, and that 
the kings and generals they had mentioned were only 
so many tulips, to which the gardeners, according to 
their usual custom, had given such high titles and 
appellations of honor. 

I was very much pleased and astonished at the glori- 
ous show of these gay vegetables, that arose in great 
profusion on all the banks about us. Sometimes I con- 
sidered them, with the eye of an ordinary spectator, 
as so many beautiful objects, varnished over with a 
natural gloss, and stained with such a variety of colors 
as are not to be equalled in any artificial dyes or tinc- 
tures. Sometimes I considered every leaf as an elab- 
orate piece of tissue, in which the threads and fibres 
were woven together in different configurations, which 
gave a different coloring to the light as it glanced on 
the several parts of the surface. Sometimes I con- 
sidered the whole bed of tulips, according to the 
notion of the greatest mathematician and philosopher 
that ever lived, as a multitude of optic instruments, 
designed for the separating light into all those various 
colors of which it is composed. 

I was awakened out of these my philosophical spec- 
ulations, by observing that the company often seemed 
to laugh at me. I accidentally praised a tulip as one 
of the finest I ever saw ; upon which they told me it 
was a common Fool's-coat. Upon that I praised a 



34 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

second, which it seems was but another kind of Fool's- 
coat. I had the same fate with two or three more ; 
for which reason I desired the owner of the garden to 
let me know which were the finest of the flowers, for 
that I was so unskilful in the art, that I thought the 
most beautiful were the most valuable, and that those 
which had the gayest colors were the most beautiful. 
The gentleman smiled at my ignorance : he seemed a 
very plain, honest man, and a person of good sense, 
had not his head been touched with that distemper 
which Hippocrates calls the Tulippo- Mania, TvXltttto- 
ixavia ; insomuch that he would talk very rationally on 
any subject in the world but a tulip. He told me " That 
he valued the bed of flowers which lay before us, and 
was not above twenty yards in length, and two in 
breadth, more than he would the best hundred acres 
of land in England ; " and added, " That it would have 
been worth twice the money it is, if a foolish cook- 
maid of his had not almost ruined him the last winter, 
by mistaking an handful of tulip-roots for an heap of 
onions, and by that means (says he) made me a dish 
of pottage that cost me above a thousand pounds 
sterling." He then showed me what he thought the 
finest of his tulips, which I found received all their 
value from their rarity and oddness, and put me in 
mind of your great fortunes, which are not always the 
greatest beauties. 

I have often looked upon it as a piece of happiness, 
that I have never fallen into any of these fantastical 
tastes, nor esteemed any thing the more for its being 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. 35 

uncommon and hard to be met with. For this reason 
I look upon the whole country in springtime as a spa- 
cious garden, and make as many visits to a sport of 
daisies, or a bank of violets, as a florist does to his 
borders and parterres. There is not a bush in blos- 
som within a mile of me which I am not acquainted 
with, nor scarce a daffodil or cowslip that withers 
away in my neighborhood without my missing it. I 
walked home in this temper of mind through several 
fields and meadows with an unspeakable pleasure, not 
without reflecting on the bounty of Providence, which 
has made the most pleasing and most beautiful objects 
the most ordinary and most common. — Tatler, No. 
218. 

6. SIGNIOR NICOLTNI AND THE LION IN THE OPERA. 

There is nothing that of late years has afforded mat- 
ter of greater amusement to the town than Signior 
Nicolini's * combat with a lion in the Haymarket, which 
has been very often exhibited to the general satisfac- 
tion of most of the nobility and gentry in the kingdom 
of Great Britain. Upon the first rumor of this in- 

1 The Italian opera was a novel form of entertainment in the London of 
1711, and Addison seems to have appreciated its absurdities and affectations 
more than its music. Nicolini was the manager under whom for the first time 
an opera was sung wholly in Italian on an English stage. Hydaspes, by Buo- 
nocini, was produced in London in the winter of 1710-11. 

" Hydaspes is a sort of profane Daniel, who, being thrown into an amphi- 
theatre to be devoured by a lion, is saved, not by faith, but by love; the pres- 
ence of his mistress among the spectators inspiring him with such courage, 
that after appealing to the monster in a minor key, and telling him that he may 
tear his bosom but cannot touch his heart, he attacks him in the relative major, 
and strangles him." — Sutherland Edwards' History of the Opera. 



36 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

tended combat it was confidently affirmed, and is 
still believed by many in both galleries, that there 
would be a tame lion sent from the Tower every opera 
night, in order to be killed by Hydaspes : this report, 
though altogether groundless, so universally prevailed 
in the upper regions of the playhouse, that some of 
the most refined politicians in those parts of the audi- 
ence gave it out in a whisper, that the lion was a 
cousin-german of the tiger who made his appearance 
in King William's days, and that the stage would be 
supplied with lions at the public expense, during the 
whole session. Many likewise were the conjectures 
of the treatment which this lion was to meet with from 
the hands of Signior Nicolini : some supposed that 
he was to subdue him in recitativo, as Orpheus used 
to serve the wild beasts in his time, and afterwards to 
knock him on the head ; some fancied that the lion 
would not pretend to lay his paws upon the hero, by 
reason of the received opinion that a lion will not 
hurt a virgin ; several, who pretended to have seen 
the opera in Italy, had informed their friends that the 
lion was to act a part in High Dutch, and roar twice 
or thrice to a thorough-bass, before he fell at the feet 
of Hydaspes. To clear up a matter that was so vari- 
ously reported, I have made it my business to examine 
whether this pretended lion is really the savage he 
appears to be, or only a counterfeit. 

But before I communicate my discoveries I must 
acquaint the reader, that upon my walking behind the 
scenes last winter, as I was thinking on something else, 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. ^7 

I accidentally jostled against a monstrous animal that 
extremely startled me, and, upon my nearer survey of 
it, appeared to be a lion rampant. The lion, seeing 
me very much surprised, told me, in a gentle voice, 
that I might come by him if I pleased; "for," says 
he, " I do not intend to hurt anybody." I thanked 
him very kindly, and passed by him ; and, in a little 
time after, saw him leap upon the stage, and act his 
part with very great applause. It has been observed 
by several, that the lion has changed his manner of 
acting twice or thrice since his first appearance ; which 
will not seem strange, when I acquaint my reader that 
the lion has been changed upon the audience three 
several times. The first lion was a candle-snuffer, who 
being a fellow of a testy, choleric temper, overdid his 
part, and would not suffer himself to be killed so easily 
as he ought to have done ; besides, it was observed of 
him, that he grew more surly every time he came out 
of the lion ; and having dropt some words in ordinary 
conversation, as if he had not fought his best, and 
that he suffered himself to be thrown upon his back in 
the scuffle, and that he would wrestle with Mr. Nico- 
lini for what he pleased, out of his lion's skin, it was 
thought proper to discard him ; and it is verily believed 
to this day, that, had he been brought upon the stage 
another time, he would certainly have done mischief. 
Besides, it was objected against the first lion, that he 
reared himself so high upon his hinder paws, and 
walked in so erect a posture, that he looked more like 
an old man than a lion. 



38 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

The second lion was a tailor by trade, who belonged 
to the playhouse, and had the character of a mild and 
peaceable man in his profession. If the former was 
too furious, this was too sheepish, for his part ; inso- 
much that after a short modest walk upon the stage, 
he would fall at the first touch of Hydaspes, without 
grappling with him, and giving him an opportunity of 
showing his variety of Italian trips : it is said, indeed, 
that he once gave him a rip in his flesh-color doublet, 
but this was only to make work for himself in his 
private character of a tailor. I must not omit that it 
was this second lion who treated me with so much 
humanity behind the scenes. 

The acting lion at present is, as I am informed, a 
country gentleman who does it for his diversion, but 
desires his name may be concealed. He says very 
handsomely, in his own excuse, that he does not act 
for gain, that he indulges an innocent pleasure in it ; 
and that it is better to pass away an evening in this 
manner, than in gaming and drinking ; but at the same 
time says, with a very agreeable raillery upon himself, 
that, if his name should be known, the ill-natured world 
might call him, The ass in the lion's skin. This gen- 
tleman's temper is made out of such a happy mixture 
of the mild and the choleric, that he outdoes both his 
predecessors, and has drawn together greater audiences 
than have been known in the memory of man. 

I must not conclude my narrative without taking 
notice of a groundless report that has been raised, to 
a gentleman's disadvantage of whom I must declare 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. 39 

myself an admirer ; namely, that Signior Nicolini and 
the lion have been seen sitting peaceably by one 
another and smoking a pipe together behind the 
scenes ; by which their common enemies would insin- 
uate, that it is but a sham combat which they represent 
upon the stage : but upon inquiry, I find that, if any 
such correspondence has passed between them, it was 
not till the combat was over, when the lion was to be 
looked upon as dead, according to the received rules 
of the drama. Besides, this is what is practised every 
day in Westminster Hall, where nothing is more usual 
than to see a couple of lawyers, who have been tearing 
each other to pieces in the court, embracing one 
another as soon as they are out of it. 

I would not be thought, in any part of this relation, 
to reflect upon Signior Nicolini, who in acting this part 
only complies with the wretched taste of his audience. 
He knows very well that the lion has many more ad- 
mirers than himself; as they say of the famous eques- 
trian statue on the Pont-Neuf at Paris, that more 
people go to see the horse than the king who sits upon 
it. On the contrary, it gives me a just indignation to 
see a person whose action gives new majesty to kings, 
resolution to heroes, and softness to lovers , thus sink- 
ing from the greatness of his behavior, and degraded 
into the character of the London 'prentice. I have 
often wished that our tragedians would copy after this 
great master in action. Could they make the same 
use of their arms and legs, and inform their faces with 
as significant looks and passions, how glorious would 



40 READINGS FPOM ADDISON. 

an English tragedy appear with that action, which is 
capable of giving a dignity to the forced thoughts, 
cold conceits, and unnatural expressions of an Italian 
opera ! In the mean time, I have related this combat 
of the lion to show what are at present the reigning 
entertainments of the politer part of Great Britain. 

Audiences have often been reproached by writers 
for the coarseness of their taste ; but our present griev- 
ance does not seem to be the want of a good taste, 
but of common-sense. — Spectator, No. ij. 

7. PARTY PATCHES. 1 

About the middle of last winter I went to see an 
opera at the theatre in the Haymarket, where I could 
not but take notice of two parties of very fine women, 
that had placed themselves in the opposite side boxes, 
and seemed drawn up in a kind of battle array one 
against another. After a short survey of them, I 
found they were patched differently ; the faces on one 
hand being spotted on the right side of the forehead, 
and those upon the other on the left. I quickly per- 
ceived that they cast hostile glances upon one another, 
and that their patches were placed in those different 
situations as party signals to distinguish friends from 
foes. In the middle boxes, between these two oppo- 
site bodies, were several ladies who patched indiffer- 
ently on both sides of their faces, and seemed to sit 

1 This curious custom of sticking upon the face patches of paper of differ- 
ent colors and shapes seems to have been introduced into England as early as 
the reign of Charles I. in the seventeenth century, and to have been revived at 
intervals until quite recent times. 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. 4 1 

there with no other intention but to see the opera. 
Upon inquiry I found that the body of amazons on 
my right hand were Whigs, and those on my left 
Tories ; and that those who had placed themselves in 
the middle boxes were a neutral party, whose faces 
had not yet declared themselves. These last, however, 
as I afterwards found, diminished daily, and took 
their party with one side or the other ; insomuch that 
I observed in several of them, the patches, which were 
before dispersed equally, are now all gone over to the 
Whig or Tory side of the face. The censorious say 
that the men, whose hearts are aimed at, are very 
often the occasions that one part of the face is thus 
dishonored, and lies under a kind of disgrace, while 
the other is so much set off and adorned by the own- 
ers ; and that the patches turn to the right or to the 
left, according to the principles of the man who is 
most in favor. But whatever may be the motives of a 
few fantastical coquettes, who do not patch for the 
public good so much as for their own private advan- 
tage, it is certain that there are several women of 
honor, who patch out of principle, and with an eye to 
the interest of their country. Nay, I am informed 
that some of them adhere so steadfastly to their party, 
and are so far from sacrificing their zeal for the public 
to their passion for any particular person, that in a late 
draught of marriage articles a lady has stipulated with 
her husband, that, whatever his opinions are, she shall 
be at liberty to patch on which side she pleases. 

I must here take notice that Rosalinda, a famous 



42 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

Whig partisan, has most unfortunately a very beautiful 
mole on the Tory part of her forehead ; which, being 
very conspicuous, has occasioned many mistakes, and 
given an handle to her enemies to misrepresent her 
face, as though it had revolted from the Whig interest. 
But, whatever this natural patch may seem to intimate, 
it is well known that her notions of government are 
still the same. This unlucky mole, however, has mis- 
led several coxcombs; and, like the hanging-out of 
false colors, made some of them converse with Rosa- 
linda in what they thought the spirit of her party, 
when on a sudden she has given them an unexpected 
fire, that has sunk them all at once. If Rosalinda is 
unfortunate in her mole, Nigranilla is as unhappy in 
a pimple, which forces her, against her inclinations, to 
patch on the Whig side. 

I am told that many virtuous matrons, who for- 
merly have been taught to believe that this artificial 
spotting of the face was unlawful, are now reconciled, 
by a zeal for their cause, to what they could not be 
prompted by a concern for their beauty. This way of 
declaring war upon one another puts me in mind of what 
is reported of the tigress, that several spots rise in her 
skin when she is angry ; or, as Mr. Cowley has imitated 
the verses that stand as the motto of this paper : — 

She swells with angry pride, 
And calls forth all her spots on every side. 

When I was in the theatre the time above mentioned, 
I had the curiosity to count the patches on both sides, 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. 43 

and found the Tory patches to be about twenty 
stronger than the Whig ; but to make amends for this 
small inequality, I the next morning found the whole 
puppet-show filled with faces spotted after the Whig- 
gish manner. Whether or no the ladies had retreated 
hither in order to rally their forces, I cannot tell ; but 
the next night they came in so great a body to the 
opera, that they outnumbered the enemy. 

This account of party patches will, I am afraid, ap- 
pear improbable to those who live at a distance from 
the fashionable world ; but as it is a distinction of a 
very singular nature, and what perhaps may never meet 
with a parallel, I think I should not have discharged 
the office of a faithful Spectator, had not I recorded it. 

I have, in former papers, endeavored to expose this 
party rage in women, as it only serves to aggravate the 
hatred and animosities that reign among men, and in 
a great measure deprives the fair sex of those pecul- 
iar charms with which nature has endued them. 

When the Romans and Sabines were at war, and 
just upon the point of giving battle, the women who 
were allied to both of them interposed with so many 
tears and entreaties, that they prevented the mutual 
slaughter which threatened both parties, and united 
them together in a firm and lasting peace. 

I would recommend this noble example to our 
British ladies at a time when their country is torn with 
so many unnatural divisions, that, if they continue, it 
will be a misfortune to be born in it. The Greeks 
thought it so improper for women to interest them- 



44 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

selves in competitions and contentions, that for this 
reason, among others, they forbade them under pain 
of death to be present at the Olympic games, notwith- 
standing these were the public diversions of all 
Greece. 

As our English women excel those of all nations in 
beauty, they should endeavor to outshine them in all 
other accomplishments proper to the sex, and to dis- 
tinguish themselves as tender mothers and faithful 
wives, rather than as furious partisans. Female vir- 
tues are of a domestic turn. The family is the proper 
province for private women to shine in. If they must 
be showing their zeal for the public, let it not be 
against those who are perhaps of the same family, or 
at least of the same religion or nation, but against 
those who are the open, professed, undoubted enemies 
of their faith, liberty, and country. When the Romans 
were pressed with a foreign enemy, the ladies volun- 
tarily contributed all their rings and jewels to assist 
the government under a public exigence ; which ap- 
peared so laudable an action in the eyes of their 
countrymen, that from thenceforth it was permitted by 
a law to pronounce public orations at the funeral of a 
woman in the praise of the deceased person, which till 
that time was peculiar to men. Would our English 
ladies, instead of sticking on a patch against those 
of their own country, show themselves so truly public- 
spirited as to sacrifice every one her necklace against 
the common enemy, what decrees ought not to be 
made in favor of them ! 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS, 45 

Since I am recollecting upon this subject such pas- 
sages as occur to my memory out of ancient authors, 
I cannot omit a sentence in the celebrated funeral 
oration of Pericles, in Thucydides, which he made in 
honor of those brave Athenians that were slain in a 
fight with the Lacedaemonians. After having addressed 
himself to the several ranks and orders of his country- 
men, and shown them how they should behave them- 
selves in the public cause, he turns to the female part 
of his audience : ' And as for you/ says he, i I shall 
advise you in very few words : aspire only to those vir- 
tues that are peculiar to your sex ; follow your natural 
modesty, and think it your greatest commendation not 
to be talked of one way or other." — Spectator, No. 
81. 

8. THE EXERCISE OF THE FAN. 

I do not know whether to call the following letter 
a satire upon coquettes, or a representation of their 
several fantastical accomplishments, or what other title 
to give it ; but as it is, I shall communicate it to the 
public. It will sufficiently explain its own intentions, 
so that I shall give it my readers at length, without 
either preface or postscript. 

Mr. Spectator, — Women are armed with fans, as men 
with swords, and sometimes do more execution with them. To 
the end therefore that ladies may be entire mistresses of the 
weapon which they bear, I have erected an academy for the 
training-up of young women in the " Exercise of the Fan," ac- 
cording to the most fashionable airs and motions that are now 
practised at court. The ladies who " carry " fans under me are 



46 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

drawn up twice a day in my great hall, where they are instructed 
in the use of their arms, and exercised by the following words 
of command*. — 

" Handle your fans, 

Unfurl your fans, 

Discharge your fans, 

Ground your fans, 

Recover your fans, 

Flutter your fans." 

By the right observation of these few plain words of com- 
mand, a woman of a tolerable genius, who will apply herself 
diligently to her exercise for the space of but one half year, 
shall be able to give her fan all the graces that can possibly 
enter into that little modish machine. But to the end that my 
readers may form to themselves a right notion of this exercise, 
I beg leave to explain it to them in all its parts. When my 
female regiment is drawn up in array, with every one her 
weapon in her hand, upon my giving the word to "handle 
their fan," each of them shakes her fan at me with a smile, 
then gives her right-hand woman a tap upon the shoulder, then 
presses her lips with the extremity of her fan, then lets her 
arms fall in an easy motion, and stands in a readiness to receive 
the next word of command. All this is done with a close fan, 
and is generally learned in the first week. 

The next motion is that of " unfurling the fan," in which are 
comprehended several little flirts and vibrations, as also grad- 
ual and deliberate openings, with many voluntary fallings asun- 
der in the fan itself, that are seldom learned under a months 
practice. This part of the exercise pleases the spectators more 
than any other, as it discovers on a sudden an infinite number 
of cupids, garlands, altars, birds, beasts, rainbows, and the like 
agreeable figures, that display themselves to view, whilst every 
one in the regiment holds a picture in her hand. 

Upon my giving the word to "discharge their fans," they 
give one general crack that may be heard at a considerable 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS, 47 

distance when the wind sits fair. This is one of the most diffi- 
cult parts of the exercise ; but I have several ladies with me 
who at their first entrance could not give a pop loud enough 
to be heard at the further end of a room, who can now " dis- 
charge a fan " in such a manner that it shall make a report 
like a pocket-pistol. I have likewise taken care (in order to 
hinder young women from letting off their fans in wrong 
places or unsuitable occasions) to show upon what subject the 
crack of a fan may come in properly. I have likewise invented 
a fan with which a girl of sixteen, by the help of a little wind, 
which is enclosed about one of the largest sticks, can make as 
loud a crack as a woman of fifty with an ordinary fan. 

When the fans are thus " discharged," the word of command 
in course is to "ground their fans." This teaches a lady 
to quit her fan gracefully when she throws it aside in order to 
take up a pack of cards, adjust a curl of hair, replace a falling 
pin, or apply herself to any other matter of importance. This 
part of the exercise, as it only consists in tossing a fan with an 
air, upon a long table (which stands by for that purpose), may 
be learned in two days' time as well as in a twelvemonth. 

When my female regiment is thus disarmed, I generally let 
them walk about the room for some time, when on a sudden 
(like ladies that look upon their watches after a long visit) 
they all of them hasten to their arms, catch them up in a hurry, 
and place themselves in their proper stations, upon my calling 
out, " Recover your fans ! " This part of the exercise is not 
difficult, provided a woman applies her thoughts to it. 

The " fluttering of the fan " is the last and indeed the mas- 
terpiece of the whole exercise ; but if a lady does not mis- 
spend her time, she may make herself mistress of it in three 
months. I generally lay aside the dog-days and the hot time 
of the summer for the teaching this part of the " exercise ; " 
for as soon as ever I pronounce, " Flutter your fans," the 
place is filled with so many zephyrs and gentle breezes as are 
very refreshing in that season of the year, though they might 
be dangerous to ladies of a tender constitution in any other. 



48 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

There is an infinite variety of motions to be made use of in 
the " flutter of a fan : " there is the angry flutter, the modest flut- 
ter, the timorous flutter, the confused flutter, the merry flutter, 
and the amorous flutter. Not to be tedious, there is scarce any 
emotion in the mind which does not produce a suitable agita- 
tion in the fan ; insomuch, that, if I only see the fan of a dis- 
ciplined lady, I know very well whether she laughs, frowns, or 
blushes. I have seen a fan so very angry, that it would have 
been dangerous for the absent lover who provoked it to have 
come within the wind of it ; and at other times so very lan- 
guishing, that I have been glad for the lady's sake the lover 
was at a sufficient distance from it. I need not add, that a fan 
is either a prude or coquette, according to the nature of the 
person who bears it. To conclude my letter, I must acquaint 
you that I have from my own observations compiled a little 
treatise for the use of my scholars, entitled " The Passions of 
the Fan ; " which I will communicate to you, if you think it may 
be of use to the public. I shall have a general review on 
Thursday next; to which you shall be very welcome if you 
will honor it with your presence. 

I am, etc. 

P. S. I teach young gentlemen the whole act of gallanting 
a fan. 

N. B. I have several little plain fans made for this use, to 
avoid expense. 

9. THE HOOD. 

One of the fathers, if I am rightly informed, has 
denned a woman to be £aw <j>i\ok6o-/jlov, an animal 
that delights in finery. I have already treated of the 
sex in two or three papers, conformably to this defini- 
tion ; and have in particular observed, that in all ages 
they have been more careful than the men to adorn 
that part of the head which we generally call the outside. 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. 49 

This observation is so very notorious, that when in 
ordinary discourse we say a man has a fine head, a 
long head, or a good head, we express ourselves meta- 
phorically, and speak in relation to his understanding ; 
whereas, when we say of a woman, she has a fine, a 
long, or a good head, we speak in relation to her 
commode. 

It is observed among birds, that Nature has lavished 
all her ornaments upon the male, who very often 
appears in a most beautiful headdress ; whether it be 
a crest, a comb, a tuft of feathers, or a natural little 
plume, erected like a kind of pinnacle on the very top 
of the head. As Nature, on the contrary, has poured 
out her charms in the greatest abundance upon the 
female part of our species, so they are very assiduous 
in bestowing upon themselves the finest garnitures 
of art. The peacock, in all his pride, does not dis- 
play half the colors that appear in the garments of a 
British lady, when she is dressed either for a ball or 
a birthday. 

But to return to our female heads. The ladies have 
been for some time in a kind of moulting season, with 
regard to that part of their dress, having cast great 
quantities of ribbon, lace, and cambric, and in some 
measure reduced that part of the human figure to the 
beautiful globular form which is natural to it. We 
have for a great while expected what kind of orna- 
ment would be substituted in the place of those anti- 
quated commodes. But our female projectors were all 
the last summer so taken up with the improvement 



SO READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

of their petticoats, that they had not time to attend to 
any thing else ; but having at length sufficiently adorned 
their lower parts, they now begin to turn their thoughts 
upon the other extremity as well, remembering the old 
kitchen proverb, "That if you light a fire at both ends, 
the middle will shift for itself." 

I am engaged in this speculation by a sight which I 
lately met with at the opera. As I was standing in the 
hinder part of the box, I took notice of a little cluster 
of women sitting together in the prettiest colored 
hoods that I ever saw. One of them was blue, another 
yellow, and another philomot; the fourth was of a 
pink color, and the fifth of a pale green. I looked 
with as much pleasure upon this little party-colored 
assembly, as upon a bed of tulips, and did not know 
at first whether it might not be an embassy of Indian 
queens ; but upon my going about into the pit, and tak- 
ing them in front, I was immediately undeceived, and 
saw so much beauty in every face, that I found them 
all to be English. Such eyes and lips, cheeks and fore- 
heads, could be the growth of no other country. The 
complexion of their faces hindered me from observing 
any further the color of their hoods, though I could 
easily perceive by that unspeakable satisfaction which 
appeared in their looks, that their own thoughts were 
wholly taken up on those pretty ornaments they wore 
upon their heads. 

I am informed that this fashion spreads daily, inso- 
much that the Whig and Tory ladies begin already to 
hang out different colors, and to show their principles 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. 5 1 

in their headdress. Nay, if I may believe my friend 
Will Honeycomb, there is a certain old coquette of 
his acquaintance, who intends to appear very suddenly 
in a rainbow hood, like the Iris in Dryden's Virgil, 
not questioning but that among such a variety of 
colors she shall have a charm for every heart. 

My friend Will, who very much values himself upon 
his great insights into gallantry, tells me that he can 
already guess at the humor a lady is in by her hood, 
as the courtiers of Morocco know the disposition of 
their present emperor by the color of the dress which 
he puts on. When Melesinda wraps her head in flame- 
color, her heart is set upon execution. When she 
covers it with purple, I would not, says he, advise her 
lover to approach her ; but if she appears in white, it 
is peace, and he may hand her out of her box with 
safety. 

Will informs me likewise, that these hoods may be 
used as signals. Why else, says he, does Cornelia 
always put on a black hood when her husband is gone 
into the country? 

Such are my friend Honeycomb's dreams of gallan- 
try. For my own part, I impute this diversity of col- 
ors in the hoods to the diversity of complexion in the 
faces of my pretty countrywomen. Ovid, in his " Art 
of Love," has given some precepts as to this particular ; 
though I find they are different from those which pre- 
vail among the moderns. He recommends a red 
striped silk to the pale complexion, white to the 
brown, and dark to the fair. On the contrary, my 



52 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

friend Will, who pretends to be a greater master in 
this art than Ovid, tells me that the palest features 
look the most agreeable in white sarcenet, that a face 
which is over-flushed appears to advantage in the 
deepest scarlet, and that the darkest complexion is 
not a little alleviated by a black hood. In short, he 
is for losing the color of the face in that of the hood, 
as a fire burns dimly and a candle goes half out in the 
light of the sun. This, says he, your Ovid himself has 
hinted, when he treats of these matters, when he tells 
us that the blue water-nymphs are dressed in sky- 
colored garments; and that Aurora, who always ap- 
pears in the light of the rising sun, is robed in saffron. 

Whether these his observations are justly grounded, 
I cannot tell ; but I have often known him, as we have 
stood together behind the ladies, praise or dispraise 
the complexion of a face which he never saw, from 
observing the color of her hood, and has been very 
seldom out in these his guesses. 

As I have nothing more at heart than the honor 
and improvement of the fair sex, 1 I cannot conclude 
this paper without an exhortation to the British ladies, 
that they would excel the women of all other nations 
as much in virtue and good sense as they do in beauty, 
which they may certainly do, if they will be as indus- 
trious to cultivate their minds as they are to adorn 
their bodies. In the mean while I shall recommend 

1 Some of the Spectator's critics thought he harped rather too much on this 
string. " I will not meddle with the Spectator," said Swift: " let him ' fair sex ' 
it to the world's end." 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. 53 

to their most serious considerations the saying of an 
old Greek poet, — 

YwfklKl KO&JJLOS O T/307T09, KOV XP V(Tia ' 1 



IO. A LADY'S LIBRARY. 

Some months ago my friend Sir Roger, being in the 
country, enclosed a letter to me, directed to a certain 
lady, whom I shall here call by the name of Leonora, 
and, as it contained matters of consequence, desired 
me to deliver it to her with my own hand. Accord- 
ingly I waited upon her ladyship pretty early in the 
morning, and was desired by her woman to walk into 
her lady's library, till such time as she was in readi- 
ness to receive me. The very sound of a lady's library 
gave me a great curiosity to see it ; and, as it was 
some time before the lady came to me, I had an op- 
portunity of turning over a great many of her books, 
which were ranged together in a very beautiful order. 
At the end of the folios (which were finely bound and 
gilt) were great jars of china placed one above another 
in a very noble piece of architecture. The quartos 
were separated from the octavos by a pile of smaller 
vessels, which rose in a delightful pyramid. The 
octavos were bounded by tea-dishes of all shapes, col- 
ors, and sizes, which were so disposed on a wooden 
frame, that they looked like one continued pillar in- 
dented with the finest strokes of sculpture, and stained 
with the greatest variety of dyes. That part of the 

1 Manners, and not dress, are the ornament of woman. 



54 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

library which was designed for the reception of plays 
and pamphlets, and other loose papers, was enclosed 
in a kind of square, consisting of one of the prettiest 
grotesque works that I ever saw, and made up of 
scaramouches, lions, monkeys, mandarins, trees, shells, 
and a thousand other odd figures in china-ware. In 
the midst of the room was a little japan table, with a 
quire of gilt paper upon it, and upon the paper a silver 
snuff-box made in the shape of a little book. I found 
there were several other counterfeit books upon the 
upper shelves, which were carved in wood, and served 
only to fill up the number, like fagots in the muster 
of a regiment. I was wonderfully pleased with such 
a mixed kind of furniture as seemed very suitable both 
to the lady and the scholar, and did not know at first 
whether I should fancy myself in a grotto or in a library. 

Upon my looking into the books, I found there were 
some few which the lady had bought for her own use, 
but that most of them had been got together, either 
because she had heard them praised, or because she 
had seen the authors of them. Among several that I 
examined, I very well remember these that follow : — 

Ogleby's Virgil. 

Dryden's Juvenal. 

Cassandra. 

Cleopatra. 

Astraea. 

Sir Isaac Newton's works. 

The Grand Cyrus ; with a pin stuck in one of the 
middle leaves. 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. 55 

Pembroke's Arcadia. 

Locke on Human Understanding ; with a paper of 
patches in it. 

A spelling-book. 

A dictionary for the explanation of hard words. 

Sherlock upon Death. 

The Fifteen Comforts of Matrimony. 

Sir William Temple's Essays. 

Father Malbranche's Search after Truth, translated 
into English. 

A book of Novels. 

The Academy of Compliments. 

Culpepper's Midwifery. 

The Ladies' Calling. 

Tales in Verse, by Mr. Durfey ; bound in red leather, 
gilt on the back, and doubled down in several places. 

All the classic authors, in wood. 

A set of Elzevirs by the same hand. 

Clelia; which opened of itself in the place that 
describes two lovers in a bower. 

Baker's Chronicle. 

Advice to a Daughter. 

The New Atalantis, with a key to it. 

Mr. Steele's Christian Hero. 

A Prayer-book ; with a bottle of Hungary water by 
the side of it. 

Dr. Sacheverell's Speech. 

Fielding's Trial. 

Seneca's Morals. 

Taylor's Holy Living and Dying. 



56 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

La Ferte's Instructions for Country-dances. 

I was taking a catalogue in my pocket-book of these 
and several other authors, when Leonora entered, and, 
upon my presenting her with the letter from the knight, 
told me with an unspeakable grace, that she hoped 
Sir Roger was in good health : I answered " Yes," for I 
hate long speeches, and after a bow or two retired. 

Leonora was formerly a celebrated beauty, and is 
still a very lovely woman. She has been a widow for 
two or three years, and being unfortunate in her first 
marriage has taken a resolution never to venture upon 
a second. She has no children to take care of, and 
leaves the management of her estate to my good friend 
Sir Roger. But as the mind naturally sinks into a kind 
of lethargy, and falls asleep, that is not agitated by 
some favorite pleasures and pursuits, Leonora has 
turned all the passions of her sex into a love of books 
and retirement. She converses chiefly with men, as 
she has often said herself, but it is only in their writ- 
ings ; and admits of very few male visitants, except 
my friend Sir Roger, whom she hears with great pleas- 
ure, and without scandal. As her reading has lain 
very much among romances, it has given her a very 
particular turn of thinking, and discovers itself even in 
her house, her gardens, and her furniture. Sir Roger 
has entertained me an hour together with a description 
of her country-seat, which is situated in a kind of wil- 
derness, about an hundred miles distant from London, 
and looks like a little enchanted palace. The rocks 
about her are shaped into artificial grottos covered 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. S7 

with woodbines and jessamines. The woods are cut 
into shady walks, twisted into bowers, and filled with 
cages of turtles. The springs are made to run among 
pebbles, and by that means taught to murmur very 
agreeably. They are likewise collected into a beauti- 
ful lake, that is inhabited by a couple of swans, and 
empties itself by a little rivulet which runs through a 
green meadow, and is known in the family by the 
name of "The purling stream.' ' The knight likewise 
tells me, that this lady preserves her game better than 
any of the gentlemen in the country : not, says Sir 
Roger, that she sets so great a value upon her par- 
tridges and pheasants as upon her larks and night- 
ingales :*for she says that every bird which is killed 
in her ground will spoil a concert, and that she shall 
certainly miss him the next year. 

When I think how oddly this lady is improved by 
learning, I look upon her with a mixture of admiration 
and pity. Amidst these innocent entertainments 
which she has formed to herself, how much more valu- 
able does she appear than those of her sex who em- 
ploy themselves in diversions that are less reasonable, 
though more in fashion ? What improvements would 
a woman have made, who is so susceptible of impres- 
sions from what she reads, had she been guided to such 
books as have a tendency to enlighten the understand- 
ing and rectify the passions, as well as to those which 
are of little more use than to divert the imagination ! 

But the manner of a lady's employing herself usefully 
in reading shall be the subject of another paper, in 



58 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

which I design to recommend such particular books as 
may be proper for the improvement of the sex. And 
as this is a subject of a very nice nature, I shall desire 
my correspondents to give me their thoughts upon it. 
— Spectator, No. J/. 

II. PRIDE OF BIRTH. 

Horace, Juvenal, Boileau, and indeed the greatest 
writers in almost every age, have exposed with all the 
strength of wit and good sense, the vanity of a man's 
valuing himself upon his ancestors, and endeavored to 
show that true nobility consists in virtue, not in birth. 
With submission, however, to so many great authori- 
ties, I think they have pushed this matter a little too 
far. We ought in gratitude to honor the posterity of 
those who have raised either the interest or reputation 
of their country, and by whose labors we ourselves are 
more happy, wise, or virtuous than we should have 
been without them. Besides, naturally speaking, a 
man bids fairer for greatness of soul, who is the de- 
scendant of worthy ancestors, and has good blood in 
his veins, than one who is come of an ignoble and 
obscure parentage. For these reasons, I think a man 
of merit, who is derived from an illustrious line, is very 
justly to be regarded more than a man of equal merit 
who has no claim to hereditary honors. Nay, I think 
those who are indifferent in themselves, and have noth- 
ing else to distinguish them but the virtues of their 
forefathers, are to be looked upon with a degree of 
veneration even upon that account, and to be more 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. 59 

respected than the common run of men who are of 
low and vulgar extraction. 

After having thus ascribed due honors to birth and 
parentage, I must, however, take notice of those who 
arrogate to themselves more honors than are due to 
them upon this account. The first are such who are 
not enough sensible that vice and ignorance taint the 
blood, and that an unworthy behavior degrades and 
disennobles a man in the eyes of the world, as much 
as birth and family aggrandize and exalt him. 

The second are those who believe a new man of an 
elevated merit is not more to be honored than an in- 
significant and worthless man who is descended from 
a long line of patriots and heroes ; or, in other words, 
behold with contempt a person who is such a man as 
the first founder of their family was, upon whose repu- 
tation they value themselves. 

But I shall chiefly apply myself to those whose qual- 
ity sits uppermost in all their discourses and behavior. 
An empty man of a great family is a creature that is 
scarce conversible. You read his ancestry in his smile, 
in his air, in his eyebrow. He has, indeed, nothing 
but his nobility to give employment to his thoughts. 
Rank and precedency are the important points which 
he is always discussing within himself. A gentleman 
of this turn began a speech in one of King Charles's 
parliaments : " Sir, I had the honor to be born at a 
time " — upon which a rough, honest gentleman took 
him up short, " I would fain know what that gentleman 
means : is there any one in this house that has not 



60 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

had the honor to be born as well as himself? " The 
good sense which reigns in our nation has pretty well 
destroyed this starched behavior among men who have 
seen the world, and know that every gentleman will 
be treated upon a foot of equality. But there are 
many who have had their education among women, 
dependents or flatterers, that lose all the respect which 
would otherwise be paid them, by being too assiduous 
in procuring it. 

My Lord Froth has been so educated in punctilio, 
that he governs himself by a ceremonial in all the ordi- 
nary occurrences of life. He measures out his bow to 
the degree of the person he converses with. I have 
seen him in every inclination of the body, from a 
familiar nod to the low stoop in the salutation-sign. I 
remember five of us, who were acquainted with one 
another, met together one morning at his lodgings, 
when a wag of the company was saying, it would be 
worth while to observe how he would distinguish us at 
his first entrance. Accordingly he no sooner came into 
the room, but, casting his eye about, " My lord such a 
one (says he) your most humble servant. — Sir Richard, 
your humble servant. — Your servant, Mr. Ironside. — 
Mr. Ducker, how do you do? — Hah ! Frank, are you 
there?" 

There is nothing more easy than to discover a 
man whose head is full of his family. Weak minds 
that have imbibed a strong tincture of the nursery, 
younger brothers that have been brought up to 
nothing, superannuated retainers to a great house, 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. 6l 

have generally their thoughts taken up with little 
else. 

I had some years ago an aunt of my own, by name 
Mrs. Martha Ironside, who would never marry beneath 
herself, and is supposed to have died a maid in the 
fourscorth year of her age. She was the chronicle of 
our family, and passed away the greatest part of the 
last forty years of her life in recounting the antiquity, 
marriages, exploits, and alliances of the Ironsides. 
Mrs. Martha conversed generally with a knot of old 
virgins, who were likewise of good families, and had 
been very cruel all the beginning of the last century. 
They were every one of them as proud as Lucifer, but 
said their prayers twice a day, and in all other respects 
were the best women in the world. If they saw a fine 
petticoat at church, they immediately took to pieces 
the pedigree of her that wore it, and would lift up 
their eyes to heaven at the confidence of the saucy 
minx, when they found she was an honest tradesman's 
daughter. It is impossible to describe the pious indig- 
nation that would rise in them at the sight of a man 
who lived plentifully on an estate of his own getting. 
They were transported with zeal beyond measure, if 
they heard of a young woman's matching into a great 
family upon account only of her beauty, her merit, or 
her money. In short, there was not a female within 
ten miles of them that was in possession of a gold 
watch, a pearl necklace, or a piece of Mechlin lace, 
but they examined her title to it. My aunt Martha 
used to chide me very frequently for not sufficiently 



62 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

valuing myself. She would not eat a bit all dinner- 
time, if at an invitation she found she had been seated 
below herself; and would frown upon me for an hour 
together, if she saw me give place to any man under a 
baronet. As I was once talking to her of a wealthy 
citizen whom she had refused in her youth, she de- 
clared to me with great warmth, that she preferred a 
man of quality in his shirt to the richest man upon 
the change in a coach and six. She pretended that 
our family was nearly related by the mother's side to 
half a dozen peers ; but as none of them knew any 
thing of the matter, we always kept it as a secret among 
ourselves. A little before her death, she was reciting 
to me the history of my forefathers ; but dwelling a 
little longer than ordinary upon the actions of Sir 
Gilbert Ironside, who had a horse shot under him at 
Edgehill fight, I gave an unfortunate pish / and asked, 
"What was all this to me?" upon which she retired to 
her closet, and fell a-scribbling for three hours together ; 
in which time, as I afterwards found, she struck me 
out of her will, and left all that she had to my sister 
Margaret, a wheedling baggage, that used to be asking 
questions about her great-grandfather from morning 
to night. She now lies buried among the family of the 
Ironsides, with a stone over her, acquainting the reader 
that she died at the age of eighty years, a spinster, and 
that she was descended of the ancient family of the 
Ironsides ; after which follows the genealogy drawn up 
by her own hand. — Guardian, No. ij/. 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. 6$ 

12. THE MYSTERIOUS LETTER. 

I have received private advice from some of my 
correspondents, that if I would give my paper a gen- 
eral run I should take care to season it with scandal. 
I have indeed observed of late, that few writings sell 
which are not filled with great names and illustrious 
titles. The reader generally casts his eye upon a new 
book, and if he finds several letters separated from 
one another by a dash, he buys it up, and peruses it 
with great satisfaction. An Mand an h, a 7^ and an r, 
with a short line between them, has sold many an in- 
sipid pamphlet. Nay, I have known a whole edition 
go off by virtue of two or three well- written Z^c's. 

A sprinkling of the words " faction," " Frenchman," 
"Papist," "plunderer," and the like significant terms, 
in an Italic character, have also a very good effect 
upon the eye of the purchaser ; not to mention " scrib- 
bler," " liar," " rogue," "rascal," "knave," and "vil- 
lain," without which it is impossible to carry on a 
modern controversy. 

Our party writers are so sensible of the secret virtue 
of an innuendo to recommend their productions, that 

of late they never mention the Q — n or P 1 at 

length, though they speak of them with honor, and 
with that deference which is due to them from every 
private person. It gives a secret satisfaction to a 
peruser of these mysterious works, that he is able to 
decipher them without help, and by the strength of 
his own natural parts to fill up a blank space, or 



64 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

make out a word that has only the first or last letter 
to it. 

Some of our authors indeed, when they would be 
more satirical than ordinary, omit only the vowels of a 
great man's name, and fall most unmercifully upon all 
the consonants. This way of writing was first of all 
introduced by T-m Br-wn, 1 of facetious memory, who, 
after having gutted a proper name of all its interme- 
diate vowels, used to plant it in his works, and make 
as free with it as he pleased, without any danger of the 
statute. 

That I may imitate these celebrated authors, and 
publish a paper which shall be more taking than ordi- 
nary, I have here drawn up a very curious libel, in 
which a reader of penetration will find a great deal 
of concealed satire, and, if he be acquainted with the 
present posture of affairs, will easily discover the mean- 
ing of it. 

" If there are four persons in the nation who en- 
deavor to bring all things into confusion, and ruin their 
native country, I think every honest Engl-shm-n ought 
to be upon his guard. That there are such, every one 
will agree with me who hears me name ****, with his 
first friend and favorite ****, not to mention ****, 
nor ****. These people may cry ch-rch, ch-rch, as 
long as they please ; but to use a homely proverb, The 
proof of the p-dd-ng is in the eating. This I am sure 
of, that if a certain prince should concur with a certain 
prelate (and we have Monsieur Z n's word for it), 

1 Thomas Brown, a forgotten writer of Dryden's time. 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. 6$ 

our posterity would be in a sweet p-ckle. Must the 
British nation suffer forsooth, because my Lady Q-p-t-s 
has been disobliged? Or is it reasonable that our 
English fleet, which used to be the terror of the ocean, 

should lie wind-bound for the sake of a ? I love 

to speak out, and declare my mind clearly, when I am 
talking for the good of my country. I will not make 

my court to an ill man, though he were a B y or 

a T 1. Nay, I would not stick to call so wretched 

a politician a traitor, an enemy to his country, and a 
bl-nd-rb-ss," etc., etc. 

The remaining part of this political treatise, which 
is written after the manner of the most celebrated au- 
thors in Great Britain, I may communicate to the 
public at a more convenient season. In the mean 
while I shall leave this with my curious reader, as 
some ingenious writers do their enigmas ; and if any 
sagacious person can fairly unriddle it I will print his 
explanation, and, if he pleases, acquaint the world 
with his name. 

I hope this short essay will convince my readers, it 
is not for want of abilities that I avoid state-tracts, and 
that, if I would apply my mind to it, I might in a little 
time be as great a master of the political scratch as 
any of the most eminent writers of the age. I shall 
only add, that in order to outshine all the modern 
race of Syncopists, and thoroughly content my Eng- 
lish readers, I intend shortly to publish a " Spectator " 
that shall not have a single vowel in it. — Spectator, 
No. 567. 



66 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

13. COFFEE-HOUSE COMMENTS ON THE ABOVE LETTER. 

I was yesterday in a coffee-house not far from the 
Royal Exchange, where I observed three persons in 
close conference over a pipe of tobacco ; upon which, 
having filled one for my own use, I lighted it at the little 
wax candle that stood before them, and, after having 
thrown in two or three whiffs amongst them, sat down 
and made one of the company. I need not tell my 
reader, that lighting a man's pipe at the same candle 
is looked upon among brother-smokers as an overture 
to conversation and friendship. As we here laid our 
heads together in a very amicable manner, being in- 
trenched under a cloud of our own raising, I took up 
the last " Spectator," and casting my eye over it, " 'The 
Spectator/ " says I, " is very witty to-day ; " upon which 
a lusty, lethargic old gentleman, who sat at the upper 
end of the table, having gradually blown out of his 
mouth a great deal of smoke, which he had been col- 
lecting for some time before, " Ay," says he, " more 
witty than wise, I am afraid." His neighbor who sat 
at his right hand immediately colored, and, being an 
angry politician, laid down his pipe with so much 
wrath that he broke it in the middle, and by that 
means furnished me with a tobacco-stopper. I took 
it up very sedately, and, looking him full in the face, 
made use of it from time to time all the while he was 
speaking. " This fellow," says he, " can't for his life 
keep out of politics. Do you see how he abuses four 
great men here? " I fixed my eye very attentively on 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS, 6/ 

the paper, and asked him if he meant those who were 
represented by asterisks. " Asterisks," says he, " do 
you call them? they are all of them stars. He might 
as well have put garters to them. Then pray do but 
mind the two or three next lines : ch-rch and p-dd-ng 
in the same sentence ! our clergy are very much be- 
holden to him." Upon this the third gentleman, who 
was of a mild disposition, and, as I found, a Whig in 
his heart, desired him not to be too severe upon " The 
Spectator " neither ; " For," says he, " you find he is 
very cautious of giving offence, and has therefore put 
two dashes into his pudding." — " A fig for his dash ! " 
says the angry politician. " In his next sentence he 
gives a plain innuendo, that our posterity will be in a 
sweet p-ckle. What does the fool mean by his pickle ? 
Why does he not write it at length if he means hon- 
estly ? " — "I have read over the whole sentence," says 
I ; " but I look upon the parenthesis in the belly of it 
to be the most dangerous part, and as full of insinua- 
tions as it can hold. But who," says I, " is my Lady 
Q-p-t-s? " — " Ay, answer that if you can, sir," says 
the furious statesman to the poor Whig that sat over 
against him. But without giving him time to reply, 
" I do assure you," says he, " were I my Lady Q-p-t-s, 
I would sue him for scandalum magnatum. What is 
the world come to? Must everybody be allowed 

to ? " He had by this time filled a new pipe, 

and applying it to his lips, when we expected the last 
words of his sentence, put us off with a whiff of to- 
bacco ; which he redoubled with so much rage and 



68 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

trepidation that he almost stifled the whole company. 
After a short pause I owned that I thought " The Spec- 
tator " had gone too far in writing so many letters of 
my Lady Q-p-t-s's name ; " But, however," says I, 
" he has made a little amends for it in his next sen- 
tence, where he leaves a blank space without so much 
as a consonant to direct us. I mean," says I, " after 
those words, ' the fleet, that used to be the terror of 
the ocean, should be wind-bound for the sake of a 
' ; after which ensues a chasm, that in my opin- 
ion looks modest enough. " — " Sir," says my antago- 
nist, " you may easily know his meaning by his gaping : 
I suppose he designs his chasm, as you call it, for a 
hole to creep out at; but I believe it will hardly 
serve his turn. Who can endure to see the great 

officers of state, the B ys and T ts, treated 

after so scurrilous a manner? " — "I can't imagine," 
says I, "who they are 'The Spectator' means." — 
" No ? " says he, — " your humble servant, sir ! " Upon 
which he flung himself back in his chair after a con- 
temptuous manner, and smiled upon the old lethargic 
gentleman on his left hand, who I found was his great 
admirer. The Whig, however, had begun to conceive 
a good will towards me, and, seeing my pipe out, very 
generously offered me the use of his box ; but I de- 
clined it with great civility, being obliged to meet a 
friend about that time in another quarter of the city. 

At my leaving the coffee-house, I could not forbear 
reflecting with myself upon that gross tribe of fools 
who may be termed the over-wise, and upon the difli- 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. 69 

culty of writing any thing in this censorious age, which 
a weak head may not construe into private satire and 
personal reflection. 

A man who has a good nose at an innuendo smells 
treason and sedition in the most innocent words that 
can be put together, and never sees a vice or folly stig- 
matized, but finds out one or other of his acquaint- 
ance pointed at by the writer. I remember an empty 
pragmatical fellow in the country, who, upon reading 
over "The Whole Duty of Man," l had written the 
names of several persons in the village at the side of 
every sin which is mentioned by that excellent author ; 
so that he had converted one of the best books in the 
world into a libel against the squire, church-wardens, 
overseers of the poor, and all other the most consid- 
erable persons in the parish. This book, with these 
extraordinary marginal notes, fell accidentally into the 
hands of one who had never seen it before; upon 
which there arose a current report that somebody had 
written a book against the squire, and the whole parish. 
The minister of the place, having at that time a con- 
troversy with some of his congregation upon the 
account of his tithes, was under some suspicion of 
being the author, until the good man set his people 
right, by showing them that the satirical passages might 
be applied to several others of two or three neighbor- 
ing villages, and that the book was writ against all the 
sinners in England. — Spectator, No. 368. 

1 A very popular religious book, first published in 1660. It went through 
several editions, and was widely read, but to this day its author is unknown. 



JO READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

14. THE ROYAL EXCHANGE. 

There is no place in the town which I so much 
love to frequent as the Royal Exchange. It gives me 
a secret satisfaction, and, in some measure, gratifies 
my vanity, as I am an Englishman, to see so rich an 
assembly of countrymen and foreigners consulting to- 
gether upon the private business of mankind, and mak- 
ing this metropolis a kind of emporium for the whole 
earth. I must confess I look upon High Change to 
be a great council, in which all considerable nations 
have their representatives. Factors in the trading 
world are what ambassadors are in the politic world : 
they negotiate affairs, conclude treaties, and maintain 
a good correspondence between those wealthy socie- 
ties of men that are divided from one another by seas 
and oceans, or live on the different extremities of a 
continent. I have often been pleased to hear disputes 
adjusted between an inhabitant of Japan and an alder- 
man of London, or to see a subject of the Great Mogul 
entering into a league with one of the Czar of Mus- 
covy. I am infinitely delighted in mixing with these 
several ministers of commerce, as they are distin- 
guished by their different walks and different lan- 
guages. Sometimes I am jostled among a body of 
Armenians ; sometimes I am lost in a crowd of Jews ; 
and sometimes make one in a group of Dutchmen. I 
am a Dane, Swede, or Frenchman, at different times ; 
or rather fancy myself like the old philosopher, who, 
upon being asked what countryman he was, replied 
that he was a citizen of the world. 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. J\ 

Though I very frequently visit this busy multitude 
of people, I am known to nobody there but my friend 
Sir Andrew, who often smiles upon me as he sees me 
bustling in the crowd, but at the same time connives 
at my presence without taking any further notice of 
me. There is indeed a merchant of Egypt who just 
knows me by sight, having formerly remitted me some 
money to Grand Cairo ; but as I am not versed in the 
modern Coptic, our conferences go no further than a 
bow and a grimace. 

This grand scene of business gives me an infinite 
variety of solid and substantial entertainments. As I 
am a great lover of mankind, my heart naturally over- 
flows with pleasure at the sight of a prosperous and 
happy multitude, insomuch that at many public so- 
lemnities I cannot forbear expressing my joy with tears 
that have stolen down my cheeks. For this reason I 
am wonderfully delighted to see such a body of men 
thriving in their own private fortunes, and at the same 
time promoting the public stock ; or, in other words, 
raising estates for their own families, by bringing into 
their own country whatever is wanting, and carrying 
out of it whatever is superfluous. 

Nature seems to have taken a particular care to dis- 
seminate her blessings among the different regions of 
the world, with an eye to this mutual intercourse and 
traffic among mankind, that the natives of the several 
parts of the globe might have a kind of dependence 
upon one another, and be united together by their 
common interest. Almost every degree produces some- 



J2 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

thing peculiar to it. The food often grows in one coun- 
try, and the sauce in another. The fruits of Portugal 
are corrected by the products of Barbadoes, the in- 
fusion of a China plant sweetened with the pith of an 
Indian cane. The Philippine Islands give a flavor to 
our European bowls. The single dress of a woman 
of quality is often the product of an hundred climates. 
The muff and the fan come together from the different 
ends of the earth. The scarf is sent from the torrid 
zone, and the tippet from beneath the pole. The 
brocade petticoat rises out of the mines of Peru, and 
the diamond necklace out of the bowels of Indostan. 
If we consider our own country in its natural pros- 
pect, without any of the benefits and advantages of 
commerce, what a barren, uncomfortable spot of earth 
falls to our share ! Natural historians tell us, that no 
fruit grows originally among us, besides hips and haws, 
acorns and pig-nuts, with other delicacies of the like 
nature ; that our climate of itself, and without the assist- 
ances of art, can make no further advances towards a 
plum than to a sloe, and carries an apple to no greater 
perfection than a crab ; that our melons, our peaches, 
our figs, our apricots and cherries, are strangers among 
us, imported in different ages, and naturalized in our 
English gardens ; and that they would all degenerate 
and fall away into the trash of our own country, if they 
were wholly neglected by the planter, and left to the 
mercy of our sun and soil. Nor has traffic more en- 
riched our vegetable world, than it has improved the 
whole face of nature among us. Our ships are laden 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. 7$ 

with the harvest of every climate ; our tables are 
stored with spices, and oils, and wines; our rooms 
are filled with pyramids of china, and adorned with 
the workmanship of Japan ; our morning's draught 
comes to us from the remotest corners of the earth ; 
we repair our bodies by the drugs of America, and 
repose ourselves under Indian canopies. My friend 
Sir Andrew calls the vineyards of France our gardens ; 
the Spice Islands, our hot-beds ; the Persians, our silk- 
weavers ; and the Chinese, our potters. Nature in- 
deed furnishes us with the bare necessaries of life ; but 
traffic gives us a great variety of what is useful, and at 
the same time supplies us with every thing that is con- 
venient and ornamental. Nor is it the least part of this 
our happiness, that, whilst we enjoy the remotest prod- 
ucts of the North and South, we are free from those 
extremities of weather which give them birth; that 
our eyes are refreshed with the green fields of Britain, 
at the same time that our palates are feasted with fruits 
that rise between the tropics. 

For these reasons there are not more useful mem- 
bers in a commonwealth than merchants. They knit 
mankind together in a mutual intercourse of good 
offices, distribute the gifts of nature, find work for the 
poor, add wealth to the rich, and magnificence to the 
great. Our English merchant converts the tin of his 
own country into gold, and exchanges his wool for ru- 
bies. The Mahometans are clothed in our British 
manufacture, and the inhabitants of the frozen zone 
warmed with the fleeces of our sheep. 



74 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

When I have been upon the Change, I have often 
fancied one of our old kings standing in person, where 
he is represented in effigy, 1 and looking down upon 
the wealthy concourse of people with which that place 
is every day filled. In this case, how would he be sur- 
prised to hear all the languages of Europe spoken in 
this little spot of his former dominions, and to see so 
many private men, who in his time would have been 
the vassals of some powerful baron, negotiating like 
princes for greater sums of money than were formerly 
to be met with in the royal treasury ! Trade, without 
enlarging the British territories, has given us a sort of 
additional empire ; it has multiplied the number of the 
rich, made our landed estates infinitely more valuable 
than they were formerly, and added to them the ac- 
cession of other estates as valuable as the lands them- 
selves. — Spectator, No. 6g. 

15. WILL HONEYCOMB, THE MAN ABOUT TOWN. 

My friend Will Honeycomb values himself very 
much upon what he calls the knowledge of mankind, 
which has cost him many disasters in his youth ; for 
Will reckons every misfortune that he has met with 
among the women, and every rencounter among the 
men, as parts of his education, and fancies he should 
never have been the man he is, had he not broke 
windows, knocked down constables, disturbed honest 
people with his midnight serenades, and beat up 

1 The statues of the English kings stood in niches on the old Exchange 
Building. 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. J$ 

Phryne's quarters, when he was a young fellow. The 
engaging in adventures of this nature, Will calls the 
studying of mankind, and terms this knowledge of the 
town, the knowledge of the world. Will ingenuously 
confesses, that for half his life his head ached every 
morning with reading of men over night ; and at pres- 
ent comforts himself under sundry infirmities with the 
reflection that without them he could not have been 
acquainted with the gallantries of the age. This Will 
looks upon as the learning of a gentleman, and regards 
all other kinds of science as the accomplishments of 
one whom he calls a scholar, a bookish man, or a 
philosopher. 

For these reasons Will shines in a mixed company, 
where he has the discretion not to go out of his depth, 
and has often a certain way of making his real ignor- 
ance appear a seeming one. Our club, however, has 
frequently caught him tripping, at which times they 
never spare him. For as Will often insults us with the 
knowledge of the town, we sometimes take our revenge 
upon him by our knowledge of books. 

He was last week producing two or three letters 
which he writ in his youth to a coquette lady. The 
raillery of them was natural, and well enough for a 
mere man of the town ; but very unluckily, several of 
the words were wrong spelt. Will laughed this off at 
first as well as he could ; but finding himself pushed 
on all sides, and especially by the Templar, he told us 
with a little passion that he never liked pedantry in 
spelling, and that he spelt like a gentleman and not 



y6 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

like a scholar : upon this Will had recourse to his old 
topic of showing the narrow-spiritedness, the pride 
and ignorance, of pedants ; which he carried so far, 
that, upon my retiring to my lodgings, I could not 
forbear throwing together such reflections as occurred 
to me upon that subject. 

A man who has been brought up among books, and 
is able to talk of nothing else, is a very indifferent 
companion, and what we call a pedant. But, me- 
thinks, we should enlarge the title, and give it to every 
one that does not know how to think out of his pro- 
fession and particular way of life. 

What is a greater pedant than a mere man of the 
town? Bar him the play-houses, a catalogue of the 
reigning beauties, and an account of a few fashionable 
distemper sthat have befallen him, and you strike him 
dumb. How many a pretty gentleman's knowledge 
lies all within the verge of the court ! He will tell you 
the names of the principal favorites, repeat the shrewd 
sayings of a man of quality, whisper an intrigue that is 
not yet blown upon by common fame ; or, if the 
sphere of his observation is a little larger than ordi- 
nary, will -perhaps enter into all the incidents, turns, 
and revolutions in a game of ombre. When he has gone 
thus far, he has shown you the whole circle of his 
accomplishments, his parts are drained, and he is dis- 
abled from any further conversation. What are these 
but rank pedants? and yet these are the men who 
value themselves most on their exemption from the 
pedantry of colleges. 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. JJ 

I might here mention the military pedant, who 
always talks in a camp, and is storming towns, making 
lodgements, and fighting battles from one end of the 
year to the other. Every thing he speaks smells of 
gunpowder: if you take away his artillery from him, 
he has not a word to say for himself. I might like- 
wise mention the law pedant, that is perpetually put- 
ting cases, repeating the transactions of Westminster 
Hall, wrangling with you upon the most indifferent 
circumstances of life, and not to be convinced of the 
distance of a place, or of the most trivial point in con- 
versation, but by dint of argument. The state pedant 
is wrapped up in news, and lost in politics. If you 
mention either of the kings of Spain or Poland, he 
talks very notably ; but if you go out of the Gazette, 
you drop him. In short, a mere courtier, a mere sol- 
dier, a mere scholar, a mere any thing, is an insipid 
pedantic character, and equally ridiculous. 

Of all the species of pedants which I have men- 
tioned, the book pedant is much the most support- 
able : he has at least an exercised understanding, and 
a head which is full though confused, so that a man 
who converses with him may often receive from him 
hints of things that are worth knowing, and what he 
may possibly turn to his own advantage, though they 
are of little use to the owner. The worst kind of 
pedants among learned men are such as are naturally 
endowed with a very small share of common-sense, 
and have read a great number of books without taste 
or distinction. 



78 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

The truth of it is, learning, like travelling, and all 
other methods of improvement, as it finishes good 
sense, so it makes a silly man ten thousand times more 
insufferable, by supplying variety of matter to his im- 
pertinence, and giving him an opportunity of abound- 
ing in absurdities. 

Shallow pedants cry up one another much more 
than men of solid and useful learning. To read the 
titles they give an editor, or collator of a manuscript, 
you would take him for the glory of the commonwealth 
of letters, and the wonder of his age ; when perhaps 
upon examination you find that he has only rectified a 
Greek particle, or laid out a whole sentence in proper 
commas. 

They are obliged indeed to be thus lavish of their 
praises, that they may keep one another in counte- 
nance ; and it is no wonder if a great deal of knowl- 
edge, which is not capable of making a man wise, has 
a natural tendency to make him vain and arrogant. 
— Spectator, No. ioj. 

l6. WILL HONEYCOMB MARRIED. 

It is very usual for those who have been severe 
upon marriage, in some part or other of their lives to 
enter into the fraternity which they have ridiculed, and 
to see their raillery return upon their own heads. I 
scarce ever knew a woman-hater that did not sooner 
or later pay for it. Marriage, which is a blessing to 
another man, falls upon such a one as a judgment. 
Mr. Congreve's "Old Bachelor" is set forth to us 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. 79 

with much wit and humor as an example of this kind. 
In short, those who have most distinguished them- 
selves by railing at the sex in general, very often make 
an honorable amends by choosing one of the most 
worthless persons of it for a companion and yoke- 
fellow. Hymen takes his revenge in kind, on those 
who turn his mysteries into ridicule. 

My friend Will Honeycomb, who was so unmerci- 
fully witty upon the women, in a couple of letters l 
which I lately communicated to the public, has given 
the ladies ample satisfaction by marrying a farmer's 
daughter ; a piece of news which came to our club by 
the last post. The Templar is very positive that he 
has married a dairy- maid ; but Will, in his letter to me 
on this occasion, sets the best face upon the matter 
that he can, and gives a more tolerable account of his 
spouse. I must confess I suspected something more 
than ordinary, when upon opening the letter I found 
that Will was fallen off from his former gayety, having 
changed Dear Spec, which was his usual salute at the 
beginning of the letter, into My worthy friend, and 
subscribed himself at the latter end of it, at full length, 
William Honeycomb. In short, the gay, the loud, the 
vain Will Honeycomb, who had made love to every 
great fortune that has appeared in town for above 
thirty years together, and boasted of favors from ladies 
whom he had never seen, is at length wedded to a 
plain country girl. 

His letter gives us the picture of a converted rake. 

1 Spectator, Nos. 409, 511; not included in this volume. 



80 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

The sober character of the husband is dashed with the 
man of the town, and enlivened with those little cant 
phrases which have made my friend Will often thought 
very pretty company. But let us hear what he says 
for himself. 

My Worthy Friend. 

I question not but you, and the rest of my acquaintance, 
wonder that I, who have lived in the smoke and gallantries of 
the town for thirty years together, should all on a sudden grow 
fond of a country life. Had not my dog of a steward run 
away as he did, without making up his accounts, I had still 
been immersed in sin and sea-coal. x But since my late forced 
visit to my estate, I am so pleased with it, that I am resolved 
to live and die upon it. I am every day abroad among my 
acres, and can scarce forbear filling my letter with breezes, 
shades, flowers, meadows, and purling streams. The simpli- 
city of manners which I have heard you so often speak of, and 
which appears here in perfection, charms me wonderfully. As 
an instance of it, I must acquaint you, and by your means the 
whole club, that I have lately married one of my tenants' 
daughters. She is born of honest parents, and though she has 
no portion she has a great deal of virtue. The natural sweet- 
ness and innocence of her behavior, the freshness of her com- 
plexion, the unaffected turn of her shape and person, shot me 
through and through every time I saw her, and did more execu- 
tion upon me in grogram than the greatest beauty in town or 
court had ever done in brocade. In short, she is such a one 
as promises me a good heir to my estate ; and if by her means 
I cannot leave to my children what are falsely called the gifts 
of birth, high titles and alliances, I hope to convey to them 
the more real and valuable gifts of birih, strong bodies and 
healthy constitutions. As for your fine women, I need not tell 
thee that I know them. I have had my share in their graces, 
1 Spectator, Nos. 409, 511; not included in this volume. 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS, 8 1 

but no more of that. It shall be my business hereafter to live 
the life of an honest man, and to act as becomes the master 
of a family. I question not but I shall draw upon me the rail- 
lery of the town, and be treated to the tune of The Marriage- 
hater matched; 1 but I am prepared for it. I have been as 
witty upon others in my time. To tell thee truly, I saw such a 
tribe of fashionable young fluttering coxcombs shot up, that I 
did not think my post of an homme de ruelle any longer tenable. 
I felt a certain stiffness in my limbs, which entirely destroyed 
that jauntiness of air I was once master of. Besides, for I may 
now confess my age to thee, I have been eight and forty above 
these twelve years. Since my retirement into the country will 
make a vacancy in the club, I could wish you would fill up my 
place with my friend Tom Dapperwit. He has an infinite deal 
of fire, and knows the town. For my own part, as I have said 
before, I shall endeavor to live hereafter suitable to a man in 
my station, as a prudent head of a family, a good husband, a 
careful father (when it shall so happen), and as 

Your most sincere friend and humble servant, 

William Honeycomb. 
Spectator, No, jjo. 

17. THE TORY FOX-HUNTER. 

For the honor of his Majesty, and the safety of his 
government, we cannot but observe, that those who 
have appeared the greatest enemies to both are of that 
rank of men who are commonly distinguished by the 
title of Fox-hunters, As several of these have had no 
part of their education in cities, camps, or courts, it is 
doubtful whether they are of greater ornament or use 
to the nation in which they live. It would be an ever- 
lasting reproach to politics, should such men be able 

1 A forgotten comedy, by Thomas Durfey. 



82 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

to overturn an establishment which has been formed 
by the wisest laws, and is supported by the ablest heads. 
The wrong notions and prejudices which cleave to 
many of these country gentlemen, who have always 
lived out of the way of being better informed, are 
not easy to be conceived by a person who has never 
conversed with them. 

That I may give my readers an image of these rural 
statesmen, I shall, without further preface, set down 
an account of a discourse I chanced to have with one 
of them some time ago. I was travelling towards 
one of the remotest parts of England, when, about three 
o'clock in the afternoon, seeing a country gentleman 
trotting before me with a spaniel by his horse's side, I 
made up to him. Our conversation opened, as usual, 
upon the weather ; in which we were very unanimous, 
having both agreed that it was too dry for the season of 
the year. My fellow-traveller, upon this, observed to 
me, that there had been no good weather since the 
Revolution. 

I was a little startled at so extraordinary a remark, 
but would not interrupt him until he proceeded to 
tell me of the fine weather they used to have in King 
Charles the Second's reign. I only answered that I 
did not see how the badness of the weather could be 
the king's fault; and, without waiting for his reply, 
asked him whose house it was we saw upon a rising 
ground at a little distance from us. He told me that 
it belonged to an old fanatical cur, Mr. Such-a-one. 
"You must have heard of him," says he: " he's one 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS, 83 

of the Rump." I knew the gentleman's character 
upon hearing his name, but assured him that to my 
knowledge he was a good Churchman. "Ay!" says 
he, with a kind of surprise. "We were told in the 
country that he spoke twice in the queen's time against 
taking off the duties upon French claret." 

This naturally led us into the proceedings of late 
parliaments, upon which occasion he affirmed roundly, 
that there had not been one good law passed since 
King William's accession to the throne, except the act 
for preserving the game. I had a mind to see him 
out, and therefore did not care for contradicting him. 
" Is it not hard," says he, " that honest gentlemen 
should be taken into custody of messengers to prevent 
them from acting according to their consciences? 
But," says he, " what can we expect when a parcel of 
factious sons of" — 

He was going on in a great passion, but chanced to 
miss his dog, who was amusing himself about a bush 
that grew at some distance behind us. We stood still 
till he had whistled him up ; when he fell into a long 
panegyric upon his spaniel, who seemed indeed ex- 
cellent in his kind ; but I found the most remarkable 
adventure of his life was, that he had once like to 
have worried a dissenting teacher. The master could 
hardly sit on his horse for laughing all the while he was 
giving me the particulars of the story, which I found 
had mightily endeared his dog to him, and, as he him- 
self told me, had made him a great favorite among all 
the honest gentlemen of the country. 



84 READINGS FROM ADDISON, 

We were at length diverted from this piece of mirth 
by a post-boy, who winding his horn at us, my com- 
panion gave him two or three curses, and left the way 
clear for him. " I fancy," said I, " that post brings 
news from Scotland. I shall long to see the next 
Gazette." — " Sir," says he, " I make it a rule never to 
believe any of your printed news. We never see, sir, 
how things go, except now and then in ' Dyer's Let- 
ter,' and I read that more for the style than the news. 
The man has a clever pen, it must be owned. But is 
it not strange that we should be making war upon 
Church-of- England men, with Dutch and Swiss sol- 
diers, men of anti-monarchical principles? These 
foreigners will never be loved in England, sir : they 
have not that wit and good-breeding that we have." 

I must confess I did not expect to hear my new 
acquaintance value himself upon these qualifications ; 
but finding him such a critic upon foreigners, I asked 
him if he had ever travelled. He told me, he did 
not know what travelling was good for,, but to teach 
a man to ride the great horse, to jabber French, and to 
talk against passive obedience. To which he added, 
that he scarce ever knew a traveller in his life who had 
not forsook his principles, and lost his hunting-seat. 
" For my part," says he, " I and my father before me 
have always been for passive obedience, and shall be 
always for opposing a prince who makes use of minis- 
ters that are of another opinion. — But where do you 
intend to inn to-night? (for we were now come in sight 
of the next town.) I can help you to a very good 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORALS. 85 

landlord if you will go along with me. He is a lusty, 
jolly fellow, that lives well, at least three yards in girth, 
and the best Church-of- England man upon the road." 
I had the curiosity to see this High- Church innkeeper, 
as well as to enjoy more of the conversation of my 
fellow-traveller, and therefore readily consented to set 
our horses together for that night. As we rode side 
by side through the town, I was let into the characters 
of all the principal inhabitants whom we met in our 
way. One was a dog, another a whelp, and another a 
cur, under which several denominations were compre- 
hended all that voted on the Whig side in the last 
election of burgesses. As for those of his own party, 
he distinguished them by a nod of his head, and ask- 
ing them how they did by their Christian names. 

Upon our arrival at the inn, my companion fetched 
out the jolly landlord, who knew him by his whistle. 
Many endearments and private whispers passed be- 
tween them ; though it was easy to see, by the land- 
lord's scratching his head, that things did not go to 
their wishes. The landlord had swelled his body 
to a prodigious size, and worked up his complexion to 
standing crimson, by his zeal for the prosperity of the 
Church, which he expressed every hour of the day, as 
his customers dropped in, by repeated bumpers. He 
had not time to go to church himself, but, as my 
friend told me in my ear, had headed a mob at the 
pulling-down of two or three meeting-houses. While 
supper was preparing, he enlarged upon the happiness 
of the neighboring shire ; " For," says he, " there is 



86 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

scarce a Presbyterian in the whole country, except the 
bishop." In short, I found by his discourse that he 
had learned a great deal of politics, but not one word 
of religion, from the parson of his parish ; and indeed, 
that he had scarce any other notion of religion, but that 
it consisted in hating Presbyterians. I had a remark- 
able instance of his notions in this particular. Upon 
seeing a poor decrepit old woman pass under the win- 
dow where he sat, he desired me to take notice of her ; 
and afterwards informed me, that she was generally 
reputed a witch by the country people, but that, for 
his part, he was apt to believe she was a Presbyterian. 
Supper was no sooner served in, than he took occa- 
sion, from a shoulder of mutton that lay before us, to 
cry up the plenty of England, which would be the 
happiest country in the world, provided we would live 
within ourselves. Upon which, he expatiated on the 
inconveniences of trade, that carried from us the com- 
modities of our country, and made a parcel of upstarts 
as rich as men of the most ancient families of Eng- 
land. He then declared frankly that he had always 
been against all treaties and alliances with foreigners. 
" Our wooden walls," says he, " are our security, and 
we may bid defiance to the whole world, especially if 
they should attack us when the militia is out." I 
ventured to reply, that I had as great an opinion of the 
English fleet as he had ; but I could not see how they 
could be paid, and manned, and fitted out, unless we 
encouraged trade and navigation. He replied with 
some vehemence, " That he would undertake to prove 



SOCIETY, FASHIONS, MINOR MORA IS. 87 

trade would be the ruin of the English nation." I 
would fain have put him upon it ; but he contented 
himself with affirming it more eagerly, to which he 
added two or three curses upon the London merchants, 
not forgetting the directors of the Bank. After sup- 
per he asked me if I was an admirer of punch ; and 
immediately called for a sneaker. 

I took this occasion to insinuate the advantages of 
trade, by observing to him, that water was the only 
native of England that could be made use of on this 
occasion ; but that the lemons, the brandy, the sugar, 
and the nutmeg were all foreigners. This put him 
into some confusion ; but the landlord, who overheard 
me, brought him off by affirming, " That for constant 
use there was no liquor like a cup of English water, 
provided it had malt enough in it." My squire laughed 
heartily at the conceit, and made the landlord sit down 
with us. 

We sat pretty late over our punch ; and, amidst a 
great deal of improving discourse, drank the healths 
of several persons in the country, whom I had never 
heard of, that, they both assured me, were the ablest 
statesmen in the nation; and of some Londoners, 
whom they extolled to the skies for their wit, and who, 
I knew, passed in town for silly fellows. It being now 
midnight, and my friend perceiving by his almanac 
that the moon was up, he called for his horse, and 
took a sudden resolution to go to his house, which was 
at three miles distance from the town, after having 
bethought himself that he never slept well out of his 



88 READINGS FROM ADDISON'. 

own bed. He shook me very heartily by the hand at 
parting, and discovered a great air of satisfaction in 
his looks that he had met with an opportunity of show- 
ing his parts, and left me a much wiser man than he 
found me. 1 — Freeholder, No, 22. 

1 It will be observed that the charming humor of this paper is used in the 
service of the Whig party, which was strongest in towns and among the 
trading class. The Freeholder, unlike the Tatler and Spectator, was freely 
open to political discussion. 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. 89 



III. 

SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. 

[The first mention of Sir Roger de Coverley occurs in " Spectator " 
No. 2, which gives an account of the several members of the Specta- 
tors. This paper seems to have been written by Steele, perhaps with 
the advice and assistance of Addison. Indeed, it is probable that to 
Steele we owe the original conception of the character of the old 
knight, though its development was the work of Addison's nicer art. 
The portrait of Sir Roger is given here as a fitting introduction to 
the papers which follow.] 

The first of our society is a gentleman of Worces- 
tershire, of ancient descent, a baronet, his name Sir 
Roger de Coverley. His great-grandfather was invent- 
or of that famous country-dance which is called after 
him. All who know that shire are very well ac- 
quainted with the parts and merits of Sir Roger. He 
is a gentleman that is very singular in his behavior ; 
but his singularities proceed from his good sense, and 
are contradictions to the manners of the world only 
as he thinks the world is in the wrong. However, this 
humor creates him no enemies, for he does nothing 
with sourness or obstinacy ; and his being unconfined 
to modes and forms makes him but the readier and 
more capable to please and oblige all who know him. 



90 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

When he is in town he lives in Soho Square. It is 
said, he keeps himself a bachelor, by reason he was 
crossed in love by a perverse beautiful widow of the 
next county to him. Before this disappointment, Sir 
Roger was what you call a fine gentleman; had 
often supped with my Lord Rochester and Sir George 
Etherege, fought a duel upon his first coming to town, 
and kicked Bully Dawson in a public coffee-house, for 
calling him youngster. But, being ill used by the 
above-mentioned widow, he was very serious for a 
year and a half; and though, his temper being natur- 
ally jovial, he at last got over it, he grew careless of 
himself, and never dressed afterwards. He continues 
to wear a coat and doublet of the same cut that were 
in fashion at the time of his repulse, which, in his 
merry humors he tells us, has been in and out twelve 
times since he first wore it. He is now in his fifty- 
sixth year, cheerful, gay, and hearty; keeps a good 
house both in town and country ; a great lover of man- 
kind ; but there is such a mirthful cast in his behavior 
that he is rather beloved than esteemed. His tenants 
grow rich, his servants look satisfied, all the young 
women profess love to him, and the young men are 
glad of his company ; when he comes into a house, he 
calls the servants by their names, and talks all the way 
up-stairs to a visit. I must not omit that Sir Roger is 
a justice of the quorum ; that he fills the chair at a 
quarter-session with great abilities, and three months 
ago gained universal applause by explaining a passage 
in the Game Act. 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. 9 1 

l8. SIR ROGER AT HOME. 

Having often received an invitation from my friend 
Sir Roger de Coverley to pass away a month with him 
in the country, I last week accompanied him thither, 
and am settled with him for some time at his country- 
house, where I intend to form several of my ensuing 
speculations. Sir Roger, who is very well acquainted 
with my humor, lets me rise and go to bed when I 
please ; dine at his own table or in my chamber, as I 
think fit ; sit still and say nothing without bidding me 
be merry. When the gentlemen of the country come 
to see him, he only shows me at a distance : as I have 
been walking in his fields, I have observed them steal- 
ing a sight of me over an hedge, and have heard the 
knight desiring them not to let me see them, for that 
I hated to be stared at. 

I am the more at ease in Sir Roger's family, be- 
cause it consists of sober and staid persons : for, as 
the knight is the best master in the world, he seldom 
changes his servants ; and, as he is beloved by all 
about him, his servants never care for leaving him ; by 
this means his domestics are all in years, and grown 
old with their master. You would take his valet-de- 
chambre for his brother ; his butler is gray-headed ; his 
groom is one of the gravest men that I have ever seen ; 
and his coachman has the looks of a privy-councillor. 
You see the goodness of the master even in the old 
house-dog, and in a gray pad that is kept in the stable 
with great care and tenderness, out of regard to his 



92 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

past services, though he has been useless for several 
years. 

I could not but observe with a great deal of pleas- 
ure the joy that appeared in the countenance of these 
ancient domestics upon my friend's arrival at his 
country-seat. Some of them could not refrain from 
tears at the sight of their old master ; every one of 
them pressed forward to do something for him, and 
seemed discouraged if they were not employed. At 
the same time the good old knight, with a mixture of 
the father and the master of the family, tempered the 
inquiries after his own affairs with several kind ques- 
tions relating to themselves. This humanity and good- 
nature engages everybody to him, so that, when he is 
pleasant upon any of them, all his family are in good 
humor, and none so much as the person whom he 
diverts himself with : on the contrary, if he coughs, or 
betrays any infirmity of old age, it is easy for a stander- 
by to observe a secret concern in the looks of all his 
servants. 

My worthy friend has put me under the particular 
care of his butler, who is a very prudent man, and, as 
well as the rest of his fellow-servants, wonderfully 
desirous of pleasing me, because they have often heard 
their master talk of me as of his particular friend. 

My chief companion, when Sir Roger is diverting 
himself in the woods or the fields, is a very venerable 
man who is ever with Sir Roger, and has lived at his 
house in the nature of a chaplain above thirty years. 
This gentleman is a person of good sense and some 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. 93 

learning, of a very regular life and obliging conversa- 
tion : he heartily loves Sir Roger, and knows that he is 
very much in the old knight's esteem, so that he lives 
in the family rather as a relation than a dependant. 1 
I have observed in several of my papers, that my 
friend Sir Roger, amidst all his good qualities, is some- 
thing of an humorist ; and that his virtues, as well as 
imperfections, are, as it were, tinged by a certain ex- 
travagance, which makes them particularly his, and 
distinguishes them from those of other men. This 
cast of mind, as it is generally very innocent in itself, 
so it renders his conversation highly agreeable, and 
more delightful than the same degree of sense and 
virtue would appear in their common or ordinary 
colors. As I was walking with him last night, he 
asked me how I liked the good man whom I have just 
now mentioned ; and, without staying for my answer, 
told me that he was afraid of being insulted with 
Latin and Greek at his own table ; for which reason 
he desired a particular friend of his at the university 
to find him out a clergyman rather of plain sense than 
much learning, of a good aspect, a clear voice, a socia- 
ble temper, and if possible a man that understood 
a little about backgammon. " My friend," says Sir 
Roger, " found me out this gentleman, who, besides the 
endowments required of him, is, they tell me, a good 
scholar, though he does not show it. I have given 
him the parsonage of the parish ; and, because I know 
his value, have settled upon him a good annuity for 
life. If he outlives me, he shall find that he was 



94 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

higher in my esteem than perhaps he thinks he is. 
He has now been with me thirty years \ and, though 
he does not know I have taken notice of it, has never 
in all that time asked any thing of me for himself, 
though he is every day soliciting me for something in 
behalf of one or other of my tenants, his parishioners. 
There has not been a lawsuit in the parish since he 
has lived among them \ if any dispute arises, they 
apply themselves to him for the decision ; if they do 
not acquiesce in his judgment, which I think never 
happened above once or twice at most, they appeal to 
me. At his first settling with me, I made him a pres- 
ent of all the good sermons which have been printed in 
English, and only begged of him that every Sunday he 
would pronounce one of them in the pulpit. Accord- 
ingly he has digested them into such a series, that 
they follow one another naturally, and make a con- 
tinued system of practical divinity." 

As Sir Roger was going on in his story, the gentle- 
man we were talking of came up to us ; and upon the 
knight's asking him who preached to-morrow (for it 
was Saturday night), told us, the Bishop of St. Asaph 
in the morning, and Dr. South in the afternoon. He 
then showed us his list of preachers for the whole year, 
where I saw with a great deal of pleasure Archbishop 
Tillotson, Bishop Saunderson, Dr. Barrow, Dr. Calamy, 
with several living authors who have published dis- 
courses of practical divinity. I no sooner saw this ven- 
erable man in the pulpit, but I very much approved 
of my friend's insisting upon the qualifications of a 



SIR ROGER DE COVE RLE Y. 95 

good aspect and a clear voice ; for I was so charmed 
with the gracefulness of his figure and delivery, as well 
as with the discourses he pronounced, that I think I 
never passed any time more to my satisfaction. A 
sermon repeated after this manner is like the compo- 
sition of a poet in the mouth of a graceful actor. 

I could heartily wish that more of our country 
clergy would follow this example ; and, instead of wast- 
ing their spirits in laborious compositions of their own, 
would endeavor after a handsome elocution, and all 
those other talents that are proper to enforce what has 
been penned by greater masters. This would not only 
be more easy to themselves, but more edifying to the 
people. — Spectator, No. 106. 

19. SIR ROGER AT CHURCH. 

I am always very well pleased with a country Sun- 
day, and think, if keeping holy the seventh day were 
only a human institution, it would be the best method 
that could have been thought of for the polishing and 
civilizing of mankind. It is certain the country peo- 
ple would soon degenerate into a kind of savages and 
barbarians, were there not such frequent returns of a 
stated time in which the whole village meet together 
with their best faces, and in their cleanliest habits, to 
converse with one another upon indifferent subjects, 
hear their duties explained to them, and join together 
in adoration of the Supreme Being. Sunday clears 
away the rust of the whole week, not only as it re- 
freshes in their minds the notions of religion, but as 



96 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

it puts both the sexes upon appearing in their most 
agreeable forms, and exerting all such qualities as are 
apt to give them a figure in the eye of the village. 
A country fellow distinguishes himself as much in 
the churchyard as a citizen does upon the Change ; the 
whole parish politics being generally discussed in that 
place, either after sermon, or before the bell rings. 

My friend Sir Roger, being a good Churchman, has 
beautified the inside of his church with several texts 
of his own choosing ; he has likewise given a hand- 
some pulpit-cloth, and railed in the communion-table 
at his own expense. He has often told me, that at 
his coming to his estate he found his parishioners very 
irregular ; and that in order to make them kneel, and 
join in the responses, he gave every one of them a 
hassock and a Common Prayer-book ; and at the same 
time employed an itinerant singing-master, who goes 
about the country for that purpose, to instruct them 
rightly in the tunes of the psalms, upon which they 
now very much value themselves, and, indeed, outdo 
most of the country churches that I have ever heard. 

As Sir Roger is landlord to the whole congregation, 
he keeps them in very good order, and will suffer 
nobody to sleep in it besides himself; for if by chance 
he has been surprised into a short nap at sermon, 
upon recovering out of it he stands up, and looks 
about him, and, if he sees anybody else nodding, either 
wakes them himself, or sends his servants to them. Sev- 
eral other of the old knight's particularities break out 
upon these occasions : sometimes he will be lengthening 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. 97 

out a verse in the singing-psalms, half a minute after 
the rest of the congregation have done with it ; some- 
times, .when he is pleased with the matter of his devo- 
tion, he pronounces Amen three or four times to the 
same prayer ; and sometimes stands up when every- 
body else is upon their knees, to count the congrega- 
tion, or see if any of his tenants are missing. 

I was yesterday very much surprised to hear my old 
friend, in the midst of the service, calling out to one 
John Matthews to mind what he was about, and not 
disturb the congregation. This John Matthews, it 
seems, is remarkable for being an idle fellow, and at 
that time was kicking his heels for his diversion. This 
authority of the knight, though exerted in that odd 
manner which accompanies him in all circumstances 
of life, has a very good effect upon the parish, who are 
not polite enough to see any thing ridiculous in his 
behavior; besides that the general good sense and 
worthiness of his character makes his friends observe 
these little singularities as foils that rather set off than 
blemish his good qualities. 

As soon as the sermon is finished, nobody presumes 
to stir till Sir Roger is gone out of the church. The 
knight walks down from his seat in the chancel be- 
tween a double row of his tenants, that stand bowing 
to him on each side ; and every now and then inquires 
how such a one's wife, or mother, or son, or father do, 
whom he does not see at church, — which is under- 
stood as a secret reprimand to the person that is 
absent. 



98 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

The chaplain has often told me, that upon a cate- 
chising day, when Sir Roger has been pleased with a 
boy that answers well, he has ordered a Bible to be 
given him next day for his encouragement ; and some- 
times accompanies it with a flitch of bacon to his 
mother. Sir Roger has likewise added five pounds a 
year to the clerk's place ; and, that he may encourage 
the young fellows to make themselves perfect in the 
church service, has promised, upon the death of the 
present incumbent (who is very old), to bestow it 
according to merit. 

The fair understanding between Sir Roger and his 
chaplain, and their mutual concurrence in doing good, 
is the more remarkable, because the very next village is 
famous for the differences and contentions that rise 
between the parson and the squire, who live in a per- 
petual state of war. The parson is always preaching 
at the squire ; and the squire, to be revenged on the 
parson, never comes to church. The squire has made 
all his tenants atheists and tithe-stealers ; while the 
parson instructs them every Sunday in the dignity of 
his order, and insinuates to them in almost every ser- 
mon that he is a better man than his patron. In short, 
matters are come to such an extremity, that the squire 
has not said his prayers either in public or private this 
half year; and that the parson threatens him, if he 
does not mend his manners, to pray for him in the 
face of the whole congregation. 

Feuds of this nature, though too frequent in the 
country, are very fatal to the ordinary people ; who 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. 99 

are so used to be dazzled with riches, that they pay as 
much deference to the understanding of a man of an 
estate, as of a man of learning ; and are very hardly 
brought to regard any truth, how important soever it 
may be, that is preached to them, when they know 
there are several men of five hundred a year who do 
not believe it. — Spectator, No. 112. 

20. SIR ROGER AT THE COUNTY ASSIZES. 

A man's first care should be to avoid the reproaches 
of his own heart ; his next, to escape the censures of 
the world. If the last interferes with the former, it 
ought to be entirely neglected ; but otherwise there 
cannot be a greater satisfaction to an honest mind, 
than to see those approbations which it gives itself 
seconded by the applauses of the public : a man is more 
sure of his conduct, when the verdict which he passes 
upon his own behavior is thus warranted and con- 
firmed by the opinion of all that know him. 

My worthy friend Sir Roger is one of those who is 
not only at peace within himself, but beloved and es- 
teemed by all about him. He receives a suitable trib- 
ute for his universal benevolence to mankind, in the 
returns of affection and good-will which are paid him 
by every one that lives within his neighborhood. I 
lately met with two or three odd instances of that 
general respect which is shown to the good old knight. 
He would needs carry Will Wimble and myself with 
him to the county assizes. As we were upon the road, 
Will Wimble joined a couple of plain men who rode 



IOO READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

before us, and conversed with them for some time ; 
during which my friend Sir Roger acquainted me with 
their characters. 

" The first of them," says he, " that has a spaniel by 
his side, is a yeoman of about a hundred pounds a 
year, an honest man : he is just within the Game Act, 
and qualified to kill a hare or a pheasant ; he knocks 
down a dinner with his gun twice or thrice a week, 
and by that means lives much cheaper than those who 
have not so good an estate as himself. He would be 
a good neighbor if he did not destroy so many par- 
tridges : in short, he is a very sensible man ; shoots 
flying; and has been several times foreman of the 
petty jury. 

" The other that rides along with him is Tom Touchy, 
a fellow famous for taking the law of everybody. 
There is not one in the town where he lives that he 
has not sued at a quarter-sessions. The rogue had once 
the impudence to go to law with the widow. His 
head is full of costs, damages, and ejectments ; he 
plagued a couple of honest gentlemen so long for a 
trespass in breaking one of his hedges, till he was 
forced to sell the ground it enclosed, to defray the 
charges of the prosecution. His father left him four- 
score pounds a year ; but he has cast and been cast so 
often, that he is not now worth thirty. I suppose he 
is going upon the old business of the willow-tree." 

As Sir Roger was giving me this account of Tom 
Touchy, Will Wimble and his two companions stopped 
short until we came up to them. After having paid 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. 1 01 

their respects to Sir Roger, Will told him that Mr. 
Touchy and he must appeal to him upon a dispute 
that arose between them. Will, it seems, had been giv- 
ing his fellow-traveller an account of his angling one 
day in such a hole ; when Tom Touchy, instead of 
hearing out his story, told him, that Mr. Such-an-one, 
if he pleased, might take the law of him , for fishing in 
that part of the river. My friend Sir Roger heard 
them both upon a round trot ; and after having paused 
some time, told them, with the air of a man who 
would not give his judgment rashly, that much might 
be said on both sides. They were neither of them 
dissatisfied with the knight's determination, because 
neither of them found himself in the wrong by it ; 
upon which we made the best of our way to the 
assizes. 

The court was set before Sir Roger came ; but not- 
withstanding all the justices had taken their places 
upon the bench, they made room for the old knight 
at the head of them ; who, for his reputation in the 
country, took occasion to whisper in the judge's ear, 
that he was glad his lordship had met with so much 
good weather in his circuit I was listening to the 
proceedings of the court with much attention, and in- 
finitely pleased with that great appearance and solem- 
nity which so properly accompanies such a public 
administration of our laws; when, after about an 
hour's sitting, I observed to my great surprise, in the 
midst of a trial, that my friend Sir Roger was getting 
up to speak. I was in some pain for him till I found 



102 READINGS FROM ADDISON 

he had acquitted himself of two or three sentences, 
with a look of much business and great intrepidity. 

Upon his first rising the court was hushed, and a 
general whisper ran among the country people that 
Sir Roger was up. The speech he made was so little 
to the purpose, that I shall not trouble my readers with 
an account of it ; and I believe was not so much de- 
signed by the knight himself to inform the court, as to 
give him a figure in my eye, and keep up his credit in 
the country. 

I was highly delighted, when the court rose, to see 
the gentlemen of the country gathering about my old 
friend, and striving who should compliment him most ; 
at the same time that the ordinary people gazed upon 
him at a distance, not a little admiring his courage, 
that was not afraid to speak to the judge. 

In our return home we met with a very odd acci- 
dent ; which I cannot forbear relating, because it 
shows how desirous all who know Sir Roger are of 
giving him marks of their esteem. When we were 
arrived upon the verge of his estate, we stopped at a 
little inn to rest ourselves and our horses. The man 
of the house had, it seems, been formerly a servant in 
the knight's family : and, to do honor to his old mas- 
ter, had some time since, unknown to Sir Roger, put 
him up in a sign-post before the door; so that " the 
Knight's Head " had hung out upon the road about a 
week before he himself knew any thing of the matter. 
As soon as Sir Roger was acquainted with it, finding 
that his servant's indiscretion proceeded wholly from 



SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY. IO3 

affection and good-will, he only told him that he had 
made him too high a compliment ; and when the fel- 
low seemed to think that could hardly be, added with 
a more decisive look, that it was too great an honor 
for any man under a duke ; but told him at the same 
time, that it might be altered with a very few touches, 
and that he himself would be at the charge of it. Ac- 
cordingly they got a painter by the knight's directions 
to add a pair of whiskers to the face, and by a little 
aggravation of the features to change it into the Sar- 
acen's Head. I should not have known this story, had 
not the innkeeper, upon Sir Roger's alighting, told him 
in my hearing that his honor's head was brought back 
last night with the alterations that he had ordered to 
be made in it. Upon this my friend with his usual 
cheerfulness related the particulars above mentioned, 
and ordered the head to be brought into the room. I 
could not forbear discovering greater expressions of 
mirth than ordinary upon the appearance of this mon- 
strous face, under which, notwithstanding it was made 
to frown and stare in a most extraordinary manner, I 
could still discover a distant resemblance of my old 
friend. Sir Roger, upon seeing me laugh, desired me 
to tell him truly if I thought it possible for people to 
know him in that disguise. I at first kept my usual 
silence ; but upon the knight conjuring me to tell him 
whether it was not still more like himself than a Sara- 
cen, I composed my countenance in the best manner 
I could, and replied, That much might be said on both 
sides. 



104 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

These several adventures, with the knight's behavior 
in them, gave me as pleasant a day as ever I met with 
in any of my travels. — Spectator, No. 122. 

21. SIR ROGER IN TOWN. 

I was this morning surprised with a great knocking 
at the door, when my landlady's daughter came up to 
me, and told me that there was a man below desired 
to speak with me. Upon my asking her who it was, 
she told me it was a Very grave elderly person, but 
that she did not know his name. I immediately went 
down to him, and found him to be the coachman of 
my worthy friend Sir Roger de Coverley. He told me 
that his master came to town last night, and would be 
glad to take a turn with me in Gray's-inn walks. As I 
was wondering in myself what had brought Sir Roger 
to town, not having lately received any letter from 
him, he told me that his master was come up to get a 
sight of Prince Eugene, 1 and that he desired I would 
immediately meet him. 

I was not a little pleased with the curiosity of the 
old knight, though I did not much wonder at it, having 
heard him say more than once, in private discourse, 
that he looked upon Prince Eugenio (for so the knight 
always calls him) to be a greater man than Scander- 
beg. 2 

1 Prince Eugene of Savoy, the ablest general among the allies of the 
English in the great war of the Spanish succession. He came to London in 
January, 1712, to watch and if possible impede the progress of the negotiations 
for peace with his enemy Ixwis XIV. of France. 

2 Scanderbeg was a Greek hero who checked the advance of the Turks in 
the fifteenth century. 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. 105 

I was no sooner come into Gray's-inn walks, but I 
heard my friend upon the terrace, hemming twice or 
thrice to himself with great vigor ; for he loves to clear 
his pipes in good air (to make use of his own phrase), 
and is not a little pleased with any one who takes 
notice of the strength which he still exerts in his 
morning hems. 

I was touched with a secret joy at the sight of the 
good old man, who before he saw me was engaged in 
conversation with a beggar- man that had asked an 
alms of him. I could hear my friend chide him for 
not finding out some work ; but at the same time saw 
him put his hand into ' his pocket, and give him six- 
pence. 

Our salutations were very hearty on both sides, con- 
sisting of many kind shakes of the hand, and several 
affectionate looks which we cast upon one another. 
After which the knight told me my good friend his 
chaplain was very well, and much at my service, and 
that the Sunday before he had made a most incom- 
parable sermon out of Dr. Barrow. " I have left/' 
says he, "all my affairs in his hands, and, being willing 
to lay an obligation upon him, have deposited with 
him thirty merks to be distributed among his poor 
parishioners." 

He then proceeded to acquaint me with the welfare 
of Will Wimble. Upon which he put his hand into 
his fob, and presented me in his name with a tobacco- 
stopper ; telling me, that Will had been busy all the 
beginning of the winter in turning great quantities of 



106 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

them, and that he made a present of one to every 
gentleman in the country who has good principles, 
and smokes. He added, that poor Will was at pres- 
ent under great tribulation, for that Tom Touchy had 
taken the law of him for cutting some hazel sticks out 
of one of his hedges. 

Among other pieces of news which the knight 
brought from his country-seat, he informed me that 
Moll White * was dead ; and that about a month after 
her death the wind was so very high, that it blew down 
the end of one of his barns. " But, for my own part," 
says Sir Roger, " I do not think that the old woman 
had any hand in it." 

He afterwards fell into an account of the diversions 
which had passed in his house during the holidays ; for 
Sir Roger, after the laudable custom of his ancestors, 
always keeps open house at Christmas. I learned 
from him, that he had killed eight fat hogs for this 
season ; that he had dealt about his chines very liber- 
ally amongst his neighbors ; and that in particular he 
had sent a string of hog's-puddings, with a pack of 
cards, to every poor family in the parish. " I have 
often thought," says Sir Roger, " it happens very well 
that Christmas should fall out in the middle of winter. 
It is the most dead and uncomfortable time of the 
year, when the poor people would suffer very much 
from their poverty and cold, if they had not good 

1 A poor old creature who lived near Sir Roger, and was much suspected 
by the neighbors of being a witch. Her story is told in Spectator, No. 117; 
not included in this volume. 



SIR ROGER DE COVER LEY, \0J 

cheer, warm fires, and Christmas gambols to support 
them. I love to rejoice their poor hearts at this sea- 
son, and to see the whole village merry in my great 
hall. I allow a double quantity of malt to my small 
beer, and set it a-running for twelve days to every one 
that calls for it. I have always a piece of cold beef 
and a mince-pie upon the table, and am wonderfully 
pleased to see my tenants pass away a whole evening 
in playing their innocent tricks, and smutting one an- 
other. Our friend Will Wimble is as merry as any of 
them, and shows a thousand roguish tricks upon these 
occasions. " 

I was very much delighted with the reflection of my 
old friend, which carried so much goodness in it. 
He then launched out into the praise of the late Act 
of Parliament for securing the Church of England; 
and told me, with great satisfaction, that he believed 
it already began to take effect, for that a rigid dissenter, 
who chanced to dine at his house on Christmas Day, 
had been observed to eat very plentifully of his plum- 
porridge. 

After having despatched all our country matters, Sir 
Roger made several inquiries concerning the club, and 
particularly of his old antagonist Sir Andrew Freeport. 
He asked me, with a kind of smile, whether Sir Andrew 
had not taken the advantage of his absence to vent 
among them some of his republican doctrines ; but 
soon after, gathering up his countenance into a more 
than ordinary seriousness, "Tell me truly," said he, 
" don't you think Sir Andrew had a hand in the Pope's 



108 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

procession ?" " but without giving me time to answer 
him, " Well, well," says he, " I know you are a wary 
-man, and do not care for talking of public matters." 

The knight then asked me if I had seen Prince 
Eugenio, and made me promise to get him a stand in 
some convenient place where he might have a full 
sight of that extraordinary man, whose presence does 
so much honor to the British nation. He dwelt very 
long on the praises of this great general, and I found 
that, since I was with him in the country, he had drawn 
many observations together out of his reading in 
Baker's Chronicle, and other authors, who always lie 
in his hall window, which very much redound to the 
honor of this prince. 

Having passed away the greatest part of the morn- 
ing in hearing the knight's reflections, which were 
partly private and partly political, he asked me if I 
would smoke a pipe with him over a dish of coffee 
at Squire's. As I love the old man, I take delight in 
complying with every thing that is agreeable to him, 
and accordingly waited on him to the coffee-house, 
where his venerable aspect drew upon us the eyes of 
the whole room. He had no sooner seated himself 
at the upper end of the high table, but he called for 
a clean pipe, a paper of tobacco, a dish of coffee, a 

1 The Pope's procession was an annual Protestant demonstration held for 
many years on Nov. 17, the anniversary of the accession of Queen Elizabeth; 
so called because images of the Pope were often carried in the procession, and 
afterward burnt in effigy. The Duke of Marlborough came home from his 
campaign of 171 1 in November, and the more zealous Whigs proposed to turn 
the usual demonstration of Nov. 17 into "a magnificent reception of the Duke; 
but the Tory government got wind of the preparations, and forbade them. 



SIR ROGER DE COVE RLE Y. IO9 

wax-candle, and the Supplement, with such an air of 
cheerfulness and good-humor, that all the boys in the 
coffee-room (who seemed to take pleasure in serving 
him) were at once employed on his several errands, 
insomuch that nobody else could come at a dish of 
tea till the knight had got all his conveniences about 
him. — Spectator, No. 269* 

22. SIR ROGER VISITS WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 

My friend Sir Roger de Coverley told me t'other 
night, that he had been reading my paper upon West- 
minster Abbey, 1 in which, says he, there are a great 
many ingenious fancies. He told me at the same time, 
that he observed I had promised another paper upon 
the tombs, and that he should be glad to go and see 
them with me, not having visited them since he had 
read history. I could not at first imagine how this 
came into the knight's head, till I recollected that he 
had been very busy all last summer upon Baker's 
Chronicle, which he has quoted several times in his 
disputes with Sir Andrew Freeport since his last com- 
ing to town. Accordingly I promised to call upon 
him the next morning, that we might go together to 
the Abbey. 

I found the knight under his butler's hand, who 
always shaves him. ' He was no sooner dressed than 
he called for a glass of the widow Trueby's water, 
which he told me he always drank before he went 
abroad. He recommended to me a dram of it at the 

1 Spectator, No. 26. See p. 146 of this volume. 



I IO READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

same time, with so much heartiness, that I could not 
forbear drinking it. As soon as I had got it down, I 
found it very unpalatable ; upon which the knight, 
observing that I had made several wry faces, told me 
that he knew I should not like it at first, but that it 
was the best thing in the world against the stone or 
gravel. 

I could have wished, indeed, that he had acquainted 
me with the virtues of it sooner ; but it was too late to 
complain, and I knew what he had done was out of 
good-will. Sir Roger told me further, that he looked 
upon it to be very good for a man whilst he stayed in 
town, to keep off infection, and that he got together a 
quantity of it upon the first news of the sickness being 
at Dantzic ; when of a sudden, turning short to one 
of his servants who stood behind him, he bid him call 
a hackney-coach, and take care it was an elderly man 
that drove it. 

He then resumed his discourse upon Mrs. Trueby's 
water, telling me that the widow Trueby was one who 
did more good than all the doctors and apothecaries 
in the country; that she distilled every poppy that 
grew within five miles of her ; that she distributed her 
water gratis among all sorts of people : to which the 
knight added, that she had a very great jointure, and 
that the whole country would fain have it a match be- 
tween him and her ; "And truly," says Sir Roger, " if I 
had not been engaged, perhaps I could not have done 
better." 

His discourse was broken off by his man's telling 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. Ill 

him he had called a coach. Upon our going to it, 
after having cast his eye upon the wheels, he asked 
the coachman if his axletree was good ; upon the fel- 
low's telling him he would warrant it, the knight turned 
to me, told me he looked like an honest man, and 
went in without further ceremony. 

We had not gone far, when Sir Roger, popping out 
his head, called the coachman down from his box, and, 
upon his presenting himself at the window, asked him 
if he smoked. As I was considering what this would 
end in, he bid him stop by the way at any good tobac- 
conist's, and take in a roll of their best Virginia. Noth- 
ing material happened in the remaining part of our 
journey, till we were set down at the west end of the 
Abbey. 

As we went up the body of the church, the knight 
pointed at the trophies upon one of the new monu- 
ments, and cried out, " A brave man, I warrant him ! " 
Passing afterwards by Sir Cloudsley Shovel, he flung his 
hand that way, and cried, "Sir Cloudsley Shovel, a 
very gallant man ! " As we stood before Busby's x 
tomb, the knight uttered himself again after the same 
manner : " Dr. Busby, a great man ! he whipped my 
grandfather. A very great man ! I should have gone 
to him myself, if I had not been a blockhead. A very 
great man ! " 

We were immediately conducted into the little 

1 Remembered by thousands of men in the seventeenth century as a very 
vigorous schoolmaster. He was head master of Westminster School from 1460 
to 1695. 



112 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

chapel on the right hand. Sir Roger, planting himself 
at our historian's elbow, was very attentive to every 
thing he said, particularly to the account he gave us 
of the lord who cut off the king of Morocco's head. 
Among several other figures, he was very well pleased 
to see the statesman Cecil upon his knees \ and, con- 
cluding them all to be great men, was conducted to 
the figure which represents that martyr to good house- 
wifery, who died by the prick of a needle. Upon our 
interpreter's telling us that she was a maid of honor to 
Queen Elizabeth, the knight was very inquisitive into 
her name and family ; and, after having regarded her 
finger for some time, "I wonder," says he, "that Sir 
Richard Baker has said nothing of her in his Chronicle." 
We were then conveyed to the two coronation 
chairs, where my old friend, after having heard that 
the stone underneath the most ancient of them, which 
was brought from Scotland, was called Jacob's Pillar, 
set himself down in the chair ; and, looking like the 
figure of an old Gothic king, asked our interpreter 
what authority they had to say that Jacob had ever 
been in Scotland. The fellow, instead of returning 
him an answer, told him that he hoped his honor 
would pay his forfeit. I could observe Sir Roger a 
little ruffled upon being thus trepanned ; but, our guide 
not insisting upon his demand, the knight soon re- 
covered his good humor, and whispered in my ear, that 
if Will Wimble were with us, and saw those two chairs, 
it would go hard but he would get a tobacco-stopper 
out of one or t'other of them. 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. 113 

Sir Roger, in the next place, laid his hand upon 
Edward the Third's sword, and, leaning upon the pom- 
mel of it, gave us the whole history of the Black 
Prince ; concluding, that, in Sir Richard Bakers opin- 
ion, Edward the Third was one of the greatest princes 
that ever sat upon the English throne. 

We were then shown Edward the Confessor's tomb, 
upon which Sir Roger acquainted us, that he was the 
first who touched for the evil ; and afterwards Henry 
the Fourth's, upon which he shook his head, and told 
us there was fine reading in the casualties of that reign. 

Our conductor then pointed to that monument 
where there is the figure of one of our English kings l 
without a head ; and upon giving us to know that the 
head, which was of beaten silver, had been stolen away 
several years since, "Some Whig, I'll warrant you," says 
Sir Roger. " You ought to lock up your kings better ; 
they will carry off the body too, if you don't take care.' , 

The glorious names of Henry the Fifth and Queen 
Elizabeth gave the knight great opportunities of shin- 
ing, and of doing justice to Sir Richard Baker, who, as 
our knight observed with some surprise, had a great 
many kings in him, whose monuments he had not seen 
in the Abbey. 

For my own part, I could not but be pleased to see 
the knight show such an honest passion for the glory 
of his country, and such a respectful gratitude to the 
memory of its princes. 

1 The statue of Henry V. ; but the head was stolen at the time of the 
Reformation. 



1 14 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

I must not omit, that the benevolence of my good 
old friend, which flows out towards every one he con- 
verses with, made him very kind to our interpreter, 
whom he looked upon as an extraordinary man ; for 
which reason he shook him by the hand at parting, 
telling him that he should be very glad to see him at 
his lodgings in Norfolk Buildings, and talk over these 
matters with him more at leisure. — Spectator, N0.32Q. 

23. SIR ROGER GOES TO THE PLAY. 

My friend Sir Roger de Coverley, when we last met 
together at the club, told me that he had a great mind 
to see the new tragedy with me ; assuring me, at the 
same time, that he had not been at a play these 
twenty years. " The last I saw," said Sir Roger, " was 
'The Committee/ which I should not have gone to 
neither, had not I been told beforehand that it was 
a good Church-of- England comedy.' ' He then pro- 
ceeded to inquire of me who this " Distressed Moth- 
er " * was ; and upon hearing that she was Hector's 
widow, he told me that her husband was a brave man, 
and that when he was a schoolboy he had read his life 
at the end of the dictionary. My friend asked me, in 
the next place, if there would not be some danger 
in coming home late, in case the Mohocks 2 should be 
abroad. " I assure you," says he, " I thought I had 

1 A play by Ambrose Philips, founded on Racine's Andromaque. 

2 A company of young rascals who amused themselves of nights by beat- 
ing belated passers, making them dance, heading them up in barrels and 
rolling them down hill, and other diversions of that character. They seem to 
have been particularly troublesome during the winter of 1711-12. 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. 115 

fallen into their hands last night ; for I observed two 
or three lusty black men that followed me half way up 
Fleet Street, and mended their pace behind me in 
proportion as I put on to get away from them. You 
must know," continued the knight, with a smile, " I 
fancied they had a mind to hunt me ; for I remember 
an honest gentleman in my neighborhood, who was 
served such a trick in King Charles II.'s time, for 
which reason he has not ventured himself in town ever 
since. I might have shown them very good sport, 
had this been their design ; for, as I am an old fox- 
hunter, I should have turned and dodged, and have 
played them a thousand tricks they had never seen 
in their lives before." Sir Roger added, that, if these 
gentlemen had any such intention, they did not succeed 
very well in it ; " for I threw them out," says he, " at 
the end of Norfolk Street, where I doubled the corner, 
and got shelter in my lodgings before they could ima- 
gine what was become of me. However," says the 
knight, " if Captain Sentry will make one with us to- 
morrow night, and if you will both of you call upon 
me about four o'clock, that we may be at the house 
before it is full, I will have my own coach in readi- 
ness to attend you ; for John tells me he has got the 
fore-wheels mended." 

The Captain, who did not fail to meet me there at 
the appointed hour, bid Sir Roger fear nothing, for 
that he had put on the same sword which he made use 
of at the battle of Steenkirk. Sir Roger's servants, 
and among the rest my old friend the butler, had, I 



Il6 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

found, provided themselves with good oaken plants 
to attend their master upon this occasion. When we 
had placed him in his coach, with myself at his left 
hand, the Captain before him, and his butler at the 
head of his footmen in the rear, we convoyed him in 
safety to the playhouse, where, after having marched 
up the entry in good order, the Captain and I went 
in with him, and seated him betwixt us in the pit. 
As soon as the house was full, and the candles lighted, 
my old friend stood up and looked about him with 
that pleasure which a mind seasoned with humanity 
naturally feels in itself, at the sight of a multitude of 
people who seem pleased with one another, and par- 
take of the same common entertainment. I could 
not but fancy myself, as the old man stood up in the 
middle of the pit, that he made a very proper centre 
to a tragic audience. Upon the entering of Pyrrhus, 
the knight told me that he did not believe the King 
of France himself had a better strut. I was indeed 
very attentive to my old friend's remarks, because I 
looked upon them as a piece of natural criticism ; 
and was well pleased to hear him, at the conclusion 
of almost every scene, telling me that he could not 
imagine how the play would end. One while he ap- 
peared much concerned for Andromache, and a little 
while after as much for Hermione ; and was extremely 
puzzled to think what would become of Pyrrhus. 

When Sir Roger saw Andromache's obstinate refusal 
to her lover's importunities, he whispered me in the 
ear, that he was sure she would never have him ; to 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. \\*J 

which he added with a more than ordinary vehemence, 
" You can't imagine, sir, what it is to have to do with 
a widow." l Upon Pyrrhus his threatening afterwards 
to leave her, the knight shook his head, and muttered 
to himself, "Ay, do if you can." This part dwelt so 
much upon my friend's imagination, that at the close 
of the third act, as I was thinking of something else, 
he whispered in my ear, "These widows, sir, are the 
most perverse creatures in the world. But pray," says 
he, " you that are a critic, is this play according to 
your dramatic rules, as you call them ? Should your 
people in tragedy always talk to be understood ? Why, 
there is not a single sentence in this play that I do not 
know the meaning of." 

The fourth act, very unluckily, began before I had 
time to give the old gentleman an answer. "Well," 
says the knight, sitting down with great satisfaction, 
"I suppose we are now to see Hector's ghost." He 
then renewed his attention, and from time to time fell 
a-praising the widow. He made indeed a little mis- 
take as to one of her pages, whom at his first entering 
he took for Astyanax ; but he quickly set himself right 
in that particular, though at the same time he owned 
he should have been very glad to have seen the little 
boy, " who," said he, " must needs be a very fine child, 
by the account that is given of him." Upon Her- 
mione's going off with a menace to Pyrrhus, the audi- 

1 On this point, however, Sir Roger was mistaken: Mr. Spectator did 
know how that was himself. At this time he had been paying diligent court 
for some two years to that great lady, the dowager Countess of Warwick — 
and with varying hopes. 



Il8 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

ence gave a loud clap ; to which Sir Roger added, 
" On my word, a notable young baggage ! " 

As there was a very remarkable silence and stillness 
in the audience during the whole action, it was natural 
for them to take the opportunity of these intervals 
between the acts, to express their opinion of the play- 
ers and of their respective parts. Sir Roger, hearing 
a cluster of them praise Orestes, struck in with them, 
and told them that he thought his friend Pylades was 
a very sensible man. As they were afterwards ap- 
plauding Pyrrhus, Sir Roger put in a second time : 
" And let me tell you," says he, " though he speaks 
but little, I like the old fellow in whiskers as well as 
any of them." Captain Sentry seeing two or three 
wags who sat near us, lean with an attentive ear to- 
wards Sir Roger, and fearing lest they should smoke ■ 
the knight, plucked him by the elbow, and whispered 
something in his ear that lasted till the opening of 
the fifth act. The knight was wonderfully attentive to 
the account which Orestes gives of Pyrrhus his death, 
and at the conclusion of it told me, it was such a 
bloody piece of work, that he was glad it was not 
done upon the stage. Seeing afterwards Orestes in 
his raving fit, he grew more than ordinary serious, 
and took occasion to moralize (in his way) upon an 
evil conscience ; adding that Orestes, in his madness, 
looked as if he saw something. 

As we were the first that came into the house, so 

1 Smoke = detect, find out ; a very common slang word in Queen Anne 
English. 



SIR ROGER DE COVERLEY. 119 

we were the last that went out of it ; being resolved to 
have a clear passage for our old friend, whom we did 
not care to venture among the jostling of the crowd. 
Sir Roger went out fully satisfied with his entertain- 
ment, and we guarded him to his lodgings in the same 
manner that we brought him to the playhouse ; being 
highly pleased, for my own part, not only with the 
performance of the excellent piece which had been 
presented, but with the satisfaction which it had given 
to the good old man. — Spectator, No. jjj. 

24. THE DEATH OF SIR ROGER. 

We last night received a piece of ill news at our club, 
which very sensibly afflicted every one of us. I ques- 
tion not but my readers themselves will be troubled 
at the hearing of it. To keep them no longer in sus- 
pense, Sir Roger de Coverley is dead. He departed this 
life at his house in the country, after a few weeks 7 sick- 
ness. Sir Andrew Freeport has a letter from one of 
his correspondents in those parts, that informs him 
the old man caught a cold at the county sessions, as 
he was very warmly promoting an address of his own 
penning, in which he succeeded according to his wishes. 
But this particular comes from a Whig justice of peace, 
who was always Sir Roger's enemy and antagonist. I 
have letters both from the chaplain and Captain Sentry 
which mention nothing of it, but are filled with many 
particulars to the honor of the good old man. I have 
likewise a letter from the butler, who took so much 
care of me last summer when I was at the knight's 



120 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

house. As my friend the butler mentions, in the sim- 
plicity of his heart, several circumstances the others 
have passed over in silence, I shall give my reader a 
copy of his letter, without any alteration or diminution. 

" Honored Sir, — Knowing that you was my old master's 
good friend, I could not forbear sending you the melancholy 
news of his death, which has afflicted the whole country, as 
well as his poor servants, who loved him, I may say, better 
than we did our lives. I am afraid he caught his death the 
last county-sessions, where he would go to see justice done to a 
poor widow woman, and her fatherless children, that had been 
wronged by a neighboring gentleman ; for you know, sir, my 
good master was always the poor man's friend. Upon his 
coming home, the first complaint he made was that he had 
lost his roast-beef stomach, not being able to touch a sirloin, 
which was served up according to custom ; and you know he 
used to take great delight in it. From that time forward he 
grew worse and worse, but still kept a good heart to the last. 
Indeed, we were once in great hope of his recovery, upon a 
kind message that was sent him from the widow lady whom 
he had made love to the forty last years of his life ; but this 
only proved a lightning before death. He has bequeathed to 
this lady, as a token of his love, a great pearl necklace, and 
a couple of silver bracelets set with jewels, which belonged to 
my good old lady his mother; he has bequeathed the fine white 
gelding, that he used to ride a-hunting upon, to his chaplain, 
because he thought he would be kind to him; and has left you 
all his books. He has, moreover, bequeathed to the chaplain 
a very pretty tenement with good lands about it. It being a 
very cold day when he made his will, he left for mourning, to 
every man in the parish, a great frieze coat, and to every woman 
a black riding-hood. It was a most moving sight to see him 
take leave of his poor servants, commending us all for our 
fidelity, whilst we were not able to speak a word for weeping. 
As we most of us are grown gray-headed in our dear master's 



SIR ROGER BE COVERLEY*. 121 

service, he has left us pensions and legacies, which we may- 
live very comfortably upon the remaining part of our days. 
He has bequeathed a great deal more in charity, which is not 
yet come to my knowledge : and it is peremptorily said in the 
parish, that he has left money to build a steeple to the church ; 
for he was heard to say some time ago, that if he lived two 
years longer Coverley church should have a steeple to it. The 
chaplain tells everybody that he made a very good end, and 
never speaks of him without tears. He was buried, according 
to his own directions, among the family of the Coverleys, on 
the left hand of his father Sir Arthur. The coffin was carried 
by six of his tenants, and the pall held up by six of the quo- 
rum ; the whole parish followed the corpse with heavy hearts, 
and in their mourning suits, the men in frieze, and the women 
in riding-hoods. Captain Sentry, my master's nephew, has taken 
possession of the hall-house, and the whole estate. When my 
old master saw him a little before his death, he shook him by 
the hand, and wished him joy of the estate which was falling to 
him, desiring him only to make a good use of it, and to pay the 
several legacies, and the gifts of charity which he told him he 
had left as quit-rents upon the estate. The Captain truly seems 
a courteous man, though he says but little. He makes much 
of those whom my master loved, and shows great kindnesses to 
the old house-dog, that you know my poor master was so fond 
of. It would have gone to your heart to have heard the moans 
the dumb creature made on the day of my master's death. He 
has never joyed himself since ; no more has any of us. 'Twas 
the melancholiest day for the poor people that ever happened 
in Worcestershire. This is all from, 

" Honored sir, your most sorrowful servant, 

"Edward Biscuit. 

" P.S. My master desired, some weeks before he died, that 
a book which comes up to you by the carrier should be given 
to Sir Andrew Freeport, in his name." 



122 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

This letter, notwithstanding the poor butler's manner 
of writing it, gave us such an idea of our good old 
friend, that upon the reading of it there was not a dry 
eye in the club. Sir Andrew, opening the book, found 
it to be a collection of Acts of Parliament. There was 
in particular the Act of Uniformity, with some passages 
in it marked by Sir Roger's own hand. Sir Andrew 
found that they related to two or three points which 
he had disputed with Sir Roger the last time he ap- 
peared at the club. Sir Andrew, who would have been 
merry at such an incident on another occasion, at the 
sight of the old man's handwriting burst into tears, 
and put the book into his pocket. Captain Sentry 
informs me that the knight has left rings and mourn- 
ing for every one in the club. — Spectator, No. jjo. 



LITERARY AND CRITICAL TOPICS. 12$ 



IV. 

LITERARY AND CRITICAL TOPICS. 

25. NED SOFTLY THE POET. 

I yesterday came hither about two hours before 
the company generally make their appearance, with a 
design to read over all the newspapers ; but upon my 
sitting down I was accosted by Ned Softly, who saw 
me from a corner in the other end of the room, where 
I found he had been writing something. 
- "Mr. Bickers taff," says he, "I observe, by a late 
paper of yours, that you and I are just of a humor ; 
for you must know, of all impertinences, there is noth- 
ing which I so much hate as news. I never read a 
gazette in my life, and never trouble my head about 
our armies, whether they win or lose, or in what part 
of the world they lie encamped." Without giving me 
time to reply, he drew a paper of verses out of his 
pocket, telling me that he had something which would 
entertain me more agreeably, and that he would desire 
my judgment upon every line ; for that we had time 
enough before us until the company came in. 

Ned Softly is a very pretty poet, and a great admirer 
of easy lines. Waller is his favorite ; and as that ad- 



124 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

mirable writer has the best and worst verses of any 
among our great English poets, Ned Softly has got all 
the bad ones without book, which he repeats upon 
occasion, to show his reading and garnish his conver- 
sation. Ned is indeed a true English reader, incapa- 
ble of relishing the great and masterly strokes of this 
art, but wonderfully pleased with the little Gothic or- 
naments of epigrammatical conceits, turns, points, and 
quibbles, which are so frequent in the most admired 
of our English poets, and practised by those who want 
genius and strength to represent, after the manner of 
the ancients, simplicity in its natural beauty and per- 
fection. 

Finding myself unavoidably engaged in such a 
conversation, I was resolved to turn my pain into 
a pleasure, and to divert myself, as well as I could, 
with so very odd a fellow. 

"You must understand," says Ned, "that the son- 
net I am going to read to you was written upon a lady 
who showed me some verses of her own making, and 
is, perhaps, the best poet of our age. But you shall 
hear it ! " Upon which he began to read as follows : — 



TO MIRA, ON HER INCOMPARABLE POEMS. 



When dress'd in laurel wreaths you shine, 
And tune your soft, melodious notes, 

You seem a sister of the Nine, 
Or Phoebus' self in petticoats. 



LITERARY AND CRITICAL TOPICS. 12$ 



I fancy, when your song you sing 

(Your song you sing with so much art), 

Your pen was pluck'd from Cupid's wing ; 
For, ah ! it wounds me like his dart. 

" Why," says I, " this is a little nosegay of conceits ; 
a very lump of salt : every verse hath something in 
it that figures ; and then the ' dart/ in the last line, is 
certainly as pretty a sting in the tail of an epigram 
(for so I think your critics call it), as ever entered 
into the thought of a poet." 

"Dear Mr. BickerstafT," says he, shaking me by the 
hand, " everybody knows you to be a judge of these 
things; and, to tell you truly, I read over Roscom- 
mon's translation of Horace's 'Art of Poetry' three 
several times, before I sat down to write the sonnet 
which I have shown you. But you shall hear it again ; 
and pray observe every line of it, for not one of them 
shall pass without your approbation. 

' When dress'd in laurel wreaths you shine. , 

This is," says he, " when you have your garland on ; 
when you are writing verses." To which I replied, 
" I know your meaning ; a metaphor." — " The same," 
said he ; and went on, — 

* And tune your soft, melodious notes.' 

Pray observe the gliding of that verse ; there is scarce 
a consonant in it. I took care to make it run upon 



126 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

liquids. Give me your opinion of it." — " Truly," said 
I, "I think it is as good as the former." — " I am very 
glad to hear you say so," says he. "But mind the 
next : — 

' You seem a sister of the Nine.' 

That is," says he, " you seem a sister of the Muses : 
for, if you look into ancient authors, you will find it 
was their opinion that there were nine of them." — "I 
remember it very well," said I ; " but pray proceed." 

* Or Phoebus* self in petticoats.' 

Phoebus," says he, "was the god of poetry. These 
little instances, Mr. Bickerstaff, show a gentleman's 
reading. Then to take off from the air of learning 
which Phcebus and the Muses have given to this first 
stanza, you may observe how it falls, all of a sudden, 
into the familiar, — 'in petticoats ! ' 

1 Or Phoebus' self in petticoats.* " 

"Let us now," says I, "enter upon the second 
stanza. I find the first line is still a continuation of 
the metaphor : — 

* I fancy, when your song you sing.* " 

" It is very right," says he \ " but pray observe the 
turn of words in those two lines. I was a whole hour 
in adjusting of them, and have still a doubt upon me 
whether, in the second line, it should be ' Your song 



LITERARY AND CRITICAL TOPICS. \2J 

you sing/ or, 'You sing your song.' You shall hear 
them both : — 

' I fancy, when your song you sing 

(Your song you sing with so much art), 
or, 

' I fancy, when your song you sing 
(You sing your song with so much art).' " 

"Truly," said I, " the turn is so natural, either way, 
that you have made me almost giddy with it." — "Dear 
sir," said he, grasping me by the hand, " you have a 
great deal of patience. But pray what do you think 
of the next verse ? 

* Your pen was pluck'd from Cupid's wing/ " 

" Think ! " says I, " I think you have made Cupid 
look like a little goose." — "That was my meaning," 
says he ; "I think the ridicule is well enough hit off. 
But we come now to the last, which sums up the whole 
matter : — 

' For, ah ! it wounds me like his dart.' 

Pray how do you like that ah? doth it not make a 
pretty figure in that place ? Ah ! it looks as if I felt 
the dart, and cried out at being pricked with it. 

' For, ah ! it wounds me like his dart.' 

"My friend Dick Easy," continued he, "assured 
me he would rather have written that ' ah ! ' than to 
have been the author of the ^Eneid. He indeed 



128 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

objected, that I made Mira's pen like a quill in one 
of the lines, and like a dart in the other. But as to 
that" — 

" Oh, as to that," says I, " it is but supposing Cupid 
to be like a porcupine, and his quills and darts will be 
the same thing." He was going to embrace me for 
the hint; but half a dozen critics coming into the 
room, whose faces he did not like, he conveyed the 
sonnet into his pocket, and whispered me in the ear, 
he would show it me again as soon as his man had 
written it over fair. — Tatkr, No. i6j. 

26. FRENCH INVASION OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 

I have often wished, that, as in our constitution 
there are several persons whose business it is to watch 
over our laws, our liberties, and commerce, certain 
men might be set apart as superintendents of our 
language, to hinder any words of a foreign coin from 
passing among us ; and in particular to prohibit any 
French phrases from being current in this kingdom, 
when those of our own stamp are altogether as valu- 
able.- The present war has so adulterated our tongue 
with strange words, that it would be impossible for one 
of our great-grandfathers to know what his posterity 
have been doing, were he to read their exploits in a 
modern newspaper. Our warriors are very industrious 
in propagating the French language, at the same time 
that they are so gloriously successful in beating down 
their power. Our soldiers are men of strong heads 
for action, and perform such feats as they are not able 



LITERARY AND CRITICAL TOPICS. 1 29 

to express. They want words in their own tongue to 
tell us what it is they achieve, and therefore send us 
over accounts of their performances in a jargon of 
phrases, which they learn among their conquered 
enemies. They ought, however, to be provided with 
secretaries, and assisted by our foreign ministers, to 
tell their story for them in plain English, and to let us 
know in our mother-tongue what it is our brave coun- 
trymen are about. The French would indeed be in 
the right to publish the news of the present war in 
English phrases, and make their campaigns unintelligi- 
ble. Their people might flatter themselves that things 
are not so bad as they really are, were they thus palli- 
ated with foreign terms, and thrown into shades and 
obscurity. But the English cannot be too clear in 
their narrative of those actions, which have raised 
their country to a higher pitch of glory than it ever 
yet arrived at, and which will be still the more admired 
the better they are explained. 

For my part, by that time a siege is carried on two 
or three days, I am altogether lost and bewildered in 
it, and meet with so many inexplicable difficulties, that 
I scarce know what side has the better of it, till I am 
informed by the Tower guns that the place is surren- 
dered. I do indeed make some allowance for this part 
of the war, fortifications having been foreign inven- 
tions, and upon that account abounding in foreign 
terms. But when we have won battles, which may be 
described in our own language, why are our papers 
filled with so many unintelligible exploits, and the 



130 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

French obliged to lend us a part of their tongue 
before we can know how they are conquered ? They 
must be made accessary to their own disgrace, as the 
Britons were formerly so artificially wrought in the 
curtain of the Roman theatre, that they seemed to 
draw it up, in order to give the spectators an oppor- 
tunity of seeing their own defeat celebrated upon the 
stage ; for so Mr. Dryden has translated that verse in 
Virgil : — 

" Purpurea intexti tollunt aulaea Britannia 

Georg. iii. 25. 

" Which interwoven Britons seem to raise, 
And show the triumph that their shame displays." 

The histories of all our former wars are transmitted 
to us in our vernacular idiom, to use the phrase of a 
great modern critic. 1 I do not find in any of our 
chronicles, that Edward III. ever reconnoitred the 
enemy, though he often discovered the posture of the 
French, and as often vanquished them in battle. 
The Black Prince passed many a river without the 
help of pontoons, and filled a ditch with fagots as 
successfully as the generals of our times do it with 
fascines. Our commanders lose half their praise, and 
our people half their joy, by means of those hard 
words and dark expressions in which our newspapers 
do so much abound. I have seen many a prudent 
citizen, after having read every article, inquire of his 
next neighbor what news the mail had brought. 

1 Bentley. 



LITERARY AND CRITICAL TOPICS. 131 

I remember, in that remarkable year, when our 
country was delivered from her greatest fears and 
apprehensions, and raised to the greatest height of 
gladness it had ever felt since it was a nation, — I 
mean the year of Blenheim, — I had the copy of a 
letter sent me out of the country, which was written 
from a young gentleman in the army to his father, a 
man of a good estate and plain sense. As the letter 
was very modishly checkered with this modern military 
eloquence, I shall present my reader with a copy of it. 

"Sir, — Upon the junction of the French and Bavarian 
armies, they took post behind a great morass, which they 
thought impracticable. Our general the next day sent a party 
of horse to reconnoitre them from a little hauteur, at about a 
quarter of an hour's distance from the army, who returned 
again to the camp unobserved through several defiles, in one 
of which they met with a party of French that had been ma- 
rauding, and made them all prisoners at discretion. The day 
after, a drum arrived at our camp, with a message which he 
would communicate to none but the general : he was followed 
by a trumpet, who they say behaved himself very saucily, with 
a message from the Duke of Bavaria. The next morning our 
army, being divided into two corps, made a movement towards 
the enemy. You will hear in the public prints how we treated 
them, with the other circumstances of that glorious day. I 
had the good fortune to be in that regiment that pushed the 
Gens d'Armes. Several French battalions, who some say were 
a corps de reserve, made a show of resistance; but it only 
proved a gasconade, for upon our preparing to fill up a little 
fosse, in order to attack them, they beat the chamade, and sent 
us charte blanche. Their commandant, with a great many other 
general officers, and troops without number, are made prisoners 
of war, and will, I believe, give you a visit in England, the 



132 READINGS FROM ADDISON, 

cartel not being yet settled. Not questioning but those par- 
ticulars will be very welcome to you, I congratulate you upon 
them, and am your most dutiful son," etc. 

The father of the young gentleman, upon the perusal 
of the letter, found it contained great news, but could 
not guess what it was. He immediately communicated 
it to the curate of the parish, who upon the reading 
of it, being vexed to see any thing he could not under- 
stand, fell into a kind of a passion, and told him that 
his son had sent him a letter that was neither fish, 
flesh, nor good red-herring. " I wish," says he, " the 
captain may be compos mentis : he talks of a saucy 
trumpet, and a drum that carries messages ; then who 
is this Charte Blanche ? He must either banter us, 
or he is out of his senses." The father, who always 
looked upon the curate as a learned man, began to 
fret inwardly at his son's usage, and producing a letter 
which he had written to him about three posts before, 
" You see here," says he, " when he writes for money 
he knows how to speak intelligibly enough ; there's no 
man in England can express himself clearer, when he 
wants a new furniture for his horse." In short, the 
old man was so puzzled upon the point, that it might 
have fared ill with his son, had he not seen all the 
prints about three days after filled with the same terms 
of art, and that Charles only wrote like other men. — 
Spectator, No. i6j. 

27. ON TASTE. 

Gratian very often recommends the fine taste as the 
utmost perfection of an accomplished man. As this 



LITERARY AND CRITICAL TOPICS. 1 33 

word arises very often in conversation, I shall endeavor 
to give some account of it, and to lay down rules how 
we may know whether we are possessed of it, and 
how we may acquire that fine taste of writing which 
is so much talked of among the polite world. 

Most languages make use of this metaphor to ex- 
press that faculty of the mind which distinguishes all 
the most concealed faults and nicest perfections in 
writing. We may be sure this metaphor would not 
have been so general in all tongues, had there not 
been a very great conformity between that mental 
taste which is the subject of this paper, and that sensi- 
tive taste which gives us a relish for every different 
flavor that affects the palate. Accordingly we find 
there are as many degrees of refinement in the intel- 
lectual faculty, as in the sense which is marked out 
by this common denomination. 

I knew a person who possessed the one in so great 
a perfection, that, after having tasted ten different 
kinds of tea, he would distinguish, without seeing the 
color of it, the particular sort which was offered him ; 
and not only so, but any two sorts of them that were 
mixed together in an equal proportion ; nay, he has 
carried the experiment so far, as, upon tasting the com- 
position of three different sorts, to name the parcels 
from whence the three several ingredients were taken. 
A man of a fine taste in writing will discern after the 
same manner, not only the general beauties and im- 
perfections of an author, but discover the several ways 
of thinking and expressing himself which diversify him 



134 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

from all other authors, with the several foreign in- 
fusions of thought and language, and the particular 
authors from whom they were borrowed. 

After having thus far explained what is generally 
meant by a fine taste in writing, and shown the pro- 
priety of the metaphor which is used on this occasion, 
I think I may define it to be, that faculty of the soul, 
which discerns the beauties of an author with pleasure, 
and the imperfections with dislike. If a man would 
know whether he is possessed of this faculty, I would 
have him read over the celebrated works of antiquity, 
which have stood the test of so many different ages 
and countries, or those works among the moderns 
which have the sanction of the politer part of our con- 
temporaries. If, upon the perusal of such writings, 
he does not find himself delighted in an extraordinary 
manner, or if, upon reading the admired passages in 
such authors, he finds a coldness and indifference 
in his thoughts, he ought to conclude, not (as is too 
usual among tasteless readers) that the author wants 
those perfections which have been admired in him, 
but that he himself wants the faculty of discovering 
them. 

He should, in the second place, be very careful to 
observe whether he tastes the distinguishing perfec- 
tions, or, if I may be allowed to call them so, the 
specific qualities, of the author whom he peruses ; 
whether he is particularly pleased with Livy for his 
manner of telling a story ; with Sallust, for his enter- 
ing into those internal principles of action which arise 



LITERARY AND CRITICAL TOPICS. 1 35 

from the characters and manners of the persons he 
describes ; or with Tacitus, for his displaying those 
outward motives of safety and interest, which give 
birth to the whole series of transactions which he 
relates. 

He may likewise consider how differently he is 
affected by the same thought which presents itself in 
a great writer, from what he is when he finds it 
delivered by a person of an ordinary genius. For 
there is as much difference in apprehending a thought 
clothed in Cicero's language, and that of a common 
author, as in seeing an object by the light of a taper, 
or by the light of the sun. 

It is very difficult to lay down rules for the acquire- 
ment of such a taste as that I am here speaking of. 
The faculty must in some degree be born with us, and 
it very often happens that those who have other quali- 
ties in perfection are wholly void of this. One of the 
most eminent mathematicians of the age has assured 
me, that the greatest pleasure he took in reading Vir- 
gil was in examining ^Eneas's voyage by the map ; as 
I question not but many a modern compiler of history 
would be delighted with little more in that divine 
author, than in the bare matters of fact. 

But notwithstanding this faculty must in some 
measure be born with us, there are several methods 
for cultivating and improving it, and without which it 
will be very uncertain, and of very little use to the 
person that possesses it. The most natural method 
for this purpose is to be conversant among the writings 



136 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

of the most polite authors. A man who has any 
relish for fine writing either discovers new beauties, or 
receives stronger impressions from the masterly strokes 
of a great author every time he peruses him ; besides 
that he naturally wears himself into the same manner 
of speaking and thinking. 

Conversation with men of a polite genius is another 
method for improving our natural taste. It is impos- 
sible for a man of the greatest parts to consider any 
thing in its whole extent, and in all its variety of lights. 
Every man, besides those general observations which 
are to be made upon an author, forms several re- 
flections that are peculiar to his own manner of think- 
ing ; so that conversation will naturally furnish us with 
hints which we did not attend to, and make us enjoy 
other men's parts and reflections as well as our own. 
This is the best reason I can give for the observation 
which several have made, that men of great genius in 
the same way of writing seldom rise up singly, but at 
certain periods of time appear together, and in a body, 
as they did at Rome in the reign of Augustus, and in 
Greece about the age of Socrates. I cannot think 
that Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Boileau, la Fontaine, 
Bruyere, Bossu, or the Daciers, would have written so 
well as they have done, had they not been friends and 
contemporaries. 

It is likewise necessary for a man who would form 
to himself a finished taste of good writing, to be well 
versed in the works of the best critics, both ancient 
and modern. I must confess that I could wish there 



LITERARY AND CRITICAL TOPICS. 1 37 

were authors of this kind, who, besides the mechanical 
rules, which a man of very little taste may discourse 
upon, would enter into the very spirit and soul of fine 
writing, and show us the several sources of that pleasure 
which rises in the mind upon the perusal of a noble 
work. Thus, although in poetry it be absolutely ne- 
cessary that the unities of time, place, and action, with 
other points of the same nature, should be thoroughly 
explained and understood, — there is still something 
more essential to the art, something that elevates and 
astonishes the fancy, and gives a greatness of mind to 
the reader, which few of the critics besides Longinus 
have considered. 

Our general taste in England is for epigram, turns 
of wit, and forced conceits, which have no manner of 
influence either for the bettering or enlarging the 
mind of him who reads them, and have been carefully 
avoided by the greatest writers both among the ancients 
and moderns. I have endeavored in several of my 
speculations to banish this Gothic taste which has 
taken possession among us. I entertained the town, 
for a week together, with an essay upon wit ; in which 
I endeavored to detect several of those false kinds 
which have been admired in the different ages of 
the world, and at the same time to show wherein the 
nature of true wit consists. I afterwards gave an in- 
stance of the great force which lies in a natural sim- 
plicity of thought to affect the mind of the reader, 
from such vulgar pieces as have little else besides this 
single qualification to recommend them. I have like- 



138 READINGS FROM ADDISON, 

wise examined the works of the greatest poet which 
our nation, or, perhaps any other, has produced ; and 
particularized most of those rational and manly beau- 
ties which give a value to that divine work. I shall 
next Saturday enter upon an essay on the pleasures of 
imagination, which, though it shall consider that sub- 
ject at large, will perhaps suggest to the reader what 
it is that gives a beauty to many passages of the finest 
writers both in prose and verse. As an undertaking 
of this nature is entirely new, I question not but it 
will be received with candor. — Spectator, No. 409. 

28. ON METHOD IN DISCUSSION. 

Among my daily papers which I bestow on the pub- 
lic, there are some which are written with regularity 
and method, and others that run out into the wildness 
of those compositions which go by the name of Essays. 
As for the first, I have the whole scheme of the dis- 
course in my mind before I set pen to paper. In the 
other kind of writing, it is sufficient that I have several 
thoughts on a subject, without troubling myself to range 
them in such order that they may seem to grow out 
of one another, and be disposed under their proper 
heads. Seneca and Montaigne are patterns for writing 
in this last kind, as Tully and Aristotle excel in the 
other. When I read an author of genius who writes 
without method, I fancy myself in a wood that abounds 
with a great many noble objects, rising among one 
another, in the greatest confusion and disorder. When 
I read a methodical discourse, I am in a regular plan- 



LITERARY AND CRITICAL TOPICS. 1 39 

tation, and can place myself in its several centres, so 
as to take a view of ail the lines and walks that are 
struck from them. You may ramble in the one a whole 
day together, and every moment discover some thing 
or other that is new to you ; but when you have done, 
you will have but a confused, imperfect notion of the 
place : in the other your eye commands the whole 
prospect, and gives you such an idea of it, as is not 
easily worn out of the memory. 

Irregularity, and want of method, are only support- 
able in men of great learning or genius, who are often 
too full to be exact, and therefore choose to throw 
down their pearls in heaps before the reader, rather 
than be at the pains of stringing them. 

Method is of advantage to the work, both in respect 
to the writer and the reader. In regard to the first, it 
is a great help to his invention. When a man has 
planned his discourse, he finds a great many thoughts 
rising out of every head, that do not offer themselves 
upon the general survey of a subject. His thoughts 
are at the same time more intelligible, and better dis- 
cover their drift and meaning, when they are placed 
in their proper lights, and follow one another in a 
regular series, than when they are thrown together 
without order and connection. There is always an 
obscurity in confusion, and the same sentence that 
would have enlightened the reader in one part of the 
discourse, perplexes him in another. For the same 
reason likewise every thought in a methodical discourse 
shows itself in its greatest beauty, as the several figures 



I4O READINGS FROM ADDISON, 

in a piece of painting receive new grace from their 
disposition in the picture. The advantages of a reader, 
from a methodical discourse, are correspondent with 
those of the writer. He comprehends every thing 
easily, takes it in with pleasure, and retains it long. 

Method is not less requisite in ordinary conver- 
sation than in writing, provided a man would talk to 
make himself understood. I, who hear a thousand 
coffee-house debates every day, am very sensible of 
this want of method in the thoughts of my honest 
countrymen. There is not one dispute in ten which 
is managed in those schools of politics, where, after 
the three first sentences, the question is not entirely 
lost. Our disputants put me in mind of the cuttle- 
fish, that, when he is unable to extricate himself, 
blackens all the water about him till he becomes 
invisible. The man who does not know how to meth- 
odize his thoughts, has always, to borrow a phrase from 
the " Dispensary," x a barren sicperfluity of words : 
the fruit is lost amidst the exuberance of leaves. 

Tom Puzzle is one of the most eminent immethod- 
ical disputants of any that has fallen under my obser- 
vation. Tom has read enough to make him very 
impertinent ; his knowledge is sufficient to raise doubts, 
but not to clear them. It is pity that he has so much 
learning, or that he has not a great deal more. With 
these qualifications Tom sets up for a free-thinker, 
finds a great many things to blame in the constitution 
of his country, and gives shrewd intimations that he 

1 The Dispensary, a poem by Samuel Garth. 



LITERARY AND CRITICAL TOPICS. I4I 

does not believe in another world. In short, Puzzle is 
an atheist as much as his parts will give him leave. He 
has got about half a dozen commonplace topics, into 
which he never fails to turn the conversation, what- 
ever was the occasion of it : though the matter in 
debate be about Douay or Denain, it is ten to one but 
half his discourse runs upon the unreasonableness and 
bigotry of priestcraft. This makes Mr. Puzzle the 
admiration of all those who have less sense than him- 
self, and the contempt of all those who have more. 
There is none in town whom Tom dreads so much as 
my friend Will Dry. Will, who is acquainted with 
Tom's logic, when he finds him running off the ques- 
tion, cuts him short with a " What then ? We allow 
all this to be true, but what is it to our present pur- 
pose ? " I have known Tom eloquent half an hour 
together, and triumphing, as he thought, in the superi- 
ority of the arguments, when he has been nonplussed 
on a sudden by Mr. Dry's desiring him to tell the 
company what it was that he endeavored to prove. 
In short, Dry is a man of a clear methodical head, but 
few words, and gains the same advantages over Puzzle, 
that a small body of regular troops would gain over 
a numberless and undisciplined militia. — Spectator, 
No. 476. 

29. LIFELESS ORATORY. 

Most foreign writers who have given any character 
of the English nation, whatever vices they ascribe to 
it, allow, in general, that the people are naturally 
modest. It proceeds, perhaps, from this our national 



I42 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

virtue, that our orators are observed to make use of 
less gesture or action than those of other countries. 
Our preachers stand stock still in the pulpit, and will 
not so much as move a finger to set off the best ser- 
mons in the world. We meet with the same speaking 
statues at our bars, and in all public places of debate. 
Our words flow from us in a smooth continued stream, 
without those strainings of the voice, motions of the 
body, and majesty of the hand, which are so much 
celebrated in the orators of Greece and Rome. We 
can talk of life and death in cold blood, and keep our 
temper in a discourse which turns upon every thing 
that is dear to us. Though our soul breaks out in the 
finest tropes and figures, it is not able to stir a limb 
about us. I have heard it observed more than once, 
by those who have seen Italy, that an untravelled 
Englishman cannot relish all the beauties of Italian 
pictures, because the postures which are expressed in 
them are often such as are peculiar to that country. 
One who has not seen an Italian in the pulpit will not 
know what to make of that noble gesture in Raphael's 
picture of St. Paul preaching at Athens, where the 
apostle is represented as lifting up both his arms, and 
pouring out the thunders of his rhetoric amidst an 
audience of pagan philosophers. 

It is certain that proper gestures and vehement 
exertions of the voice cannot be too much studied by 
a public orator. They are a kind of comment to what 
he utters, and enforce every thing he says, with weak 
hearers, better than the strongest argument he can 



LITERARY AND CRITICAL TOPICS. 1 43 

make use of. They keep the audience awake, and fix 
their attention to what is delivered to them, at the 
same time that they show the speaker is in earnest, 
and affected himself with what he so passionately 
recommends to others. Violent gesture and vocifera- 
tion naturally shake the hearts of the ignorant, and fill 
them with a kind of religious horror. Nothing is 
more frequent than to see women weep and tremble 
at the sight of a moving preacher, though he is placed 
quite out of their hearing ; as in England we very fre- 
quently see people lulled asleep with solid and elabo- 
rate discourses of piety, who would be warmed and 
transported out of themselves by the bellowings and 
distortions of enthusiasm. 

If nonsense, when accompanied with such an emo- 
tion of voice and body, has such an influence on men's 
minds, what might we not expect from many of those 
admirable discourses which are printed in our tongue, 
were they delivered with a becoming fervor, and with 
the agreeable graces of voice and gesture ? 

We are told that the great Latin orator very much 
impaired his health by this laterum contention — this 
vehemence of action with which he used to deliver 
himself. The Greek orator was likewise so famous 
for this particular in rhetoric, that one of his antago- 
nists, whom he had banished from Athens, reading 
over the oration which had procured his banishment, 
and seeing his friends admire it, could not forbear 
asking them, if they were so much affected by the 
bare reading of it, how much more they would have 



144 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

been alarmed, had they heard him actually throwing 
out such a storm of eloquence. 

How cold and dead a figure, in comparison of these 
two great men, does an orator often make at the 
British bar, holding up his head with the most insipid 
serenity, and stroking the sides of a long wig that 
reaches down to his middle ! The truth of it is, there 
is often nothing more ridiculous than the gestures of 
an English speaker; you see some of them running 
their hands into their pockets as far as ever they can 
thrust them, and others looking with great attention 
on a piece of paper that has nothing written in it; 
you may see many a smart rhetorician turning his hat 
in his hands, moulding it into several different cocks, 
examining sometimes the lining of it, and sometimes 
the button, during the whole course of his harangue. 
A deaf man would think he was cheapening a beaver, 
when perhaps he is talking of the fate of the British 
nation. I remember when I was a young man, and 
used to frequent Westminster Hall, there was a coun- 
sellor who never pleaded without a piece of pack- 
thread in his hand, which he used to twist about a 
thumb, or a finger, all the while he was speaking ; the 
wags of those days used to call it the thread of his 
discourse, for he was not able to utter a word without 
it. One of his clients, who was more merry than 
wise, stole it from him one day in the midst of his 
pleading ; but he had better have let it alone, for he 
lost his cause by his jest. 

I have all along acknowledged myself to be a dumb 



LITERARY AND CRITICAL TOPICS. 1 45 

man, and therefore may be thought a very improper 
person to give rules for oratory ; but I believe every 
one will agree with me in this, that we ought either to 
lay aside all kinds of gesture (which seems to be very 
suitable to the genius of our nation), or at least to 
make use of such only as are graceful and expressive. 
— Spectator, No, 407. 



I46 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 



V. 

MORALS AND RELIGION. 

30. MEDITATIONS IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 

When I am in a serious humor, I very often walk 
by myself in Westminster Abbey ; where the gloomi- 
ness of the place, and the use to which it is applied, 
with the solemnity of the building, and the condition 
of the people who lie in it, are apt to fill the mind 
with a kind of melancholy, or rather thoughtfulness, 
that is not disagreeable. I yesterday passed a whole 
afternoon in the churchyard, the cloisters, and the 
church, amusing myself with the tombstones and in- 
scriptions that I met with in those several regions 
of the dead. Most of them recorded nothing else of 
the buried person, but that he was born upon one 
day, and died upon another : the whole history of his 
life being comprehended in those two circumstances, 
that are common to all mankind. I could not but 
look upon these registers of existence, whether of 
brass or marble, as a kind of satire upon the departed 
persons, who had left no other memorial of them, but 
that they were born and that they died. They put 
one in mind of several persons mentioned in the bat- 
tles of heroic poems, who have sounding names given 
them, for no other reason but that they may be killed, 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 147 

and are celebrated for nothing but being knocked on 
the head. 

Glaucumque, Medontaque, Thersilochumque. — Virg. 

The life of these men is finely described in Holy 
Writ by " the path of an arrow/ ' which is immediately 
closed up and lost. 

Upon my going into the church, I entertained my- 
self with the digging of a grave ; and saw, in every 
shovel-full of it that was thrown up, the fragment of a 
bone or skull intermixed with a kind of fresh moulder- 
ing earth that some time or other had a place in the 
composition of a human body. Upon this I began 
to consider with myself, what innumerable multitudes 
of people lay confused together under the pavement of 
that ancient cathedral ; how men and women, friends 
and enemies, priests and soldiers, monks and prebenda- 
ries, were crumbled amongst one another, and blended 
together in the same common mass ; how beauty, 
strength, and youth, with old age, weakness, and de- 
formity, lay undistinguished in the same promiscuous 
heap of matter. 

After having thus surveyed this great magazine of 
mortality, as it were in the lump, I examined it 
more particularly by the accounts which I found on 
several of the monuments which are raised in every 
quarter of that ancient fabric. Some of them were 
covered with such extravagant epitaphs, that, if it 
were possible for the dead person to be acquainted 
with them, he would blush at the praises which his 



148 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

friends have bestowed upon him. There are others 
so excessively modest, that they deliver the character 
of the person departed in Greek or Hebrew, and by 
that means are not understood once in a twelvemonth. 
In the poetical quarter, I found there were poets who 
had no monuments, and monuments which had no 
poets. I observed, indeed, that the present war had 
filled the church with many of these uninhabited mon- 
uments, which had been erected to the memory of 
persons whose bodies were perhaps buried in the 
plains of Blenheim, or in the bosom of the ocean. 

I could not but be very much delighted with several 
modern epitaphs, which are written with great elegance 
of expression and justness of thought, and therefore 
do honor to the living as well as to the dead. As a 
foreigner is very apt to conceive an idea of the igno- 
rance or politeness of a nation from the turn of their 
public monuments and inscriptions, they should be 
submitted to the perusal of men of learning and gen- 
ius before they are put in execution. Sir Cloudesley 
Shovel's monument has very often given me great 
offence ; instead of the brave, rough English admiral, 
which was the distinguishing character of that plain, 
gallant man, he is represented on his tomb by the 
figure of a beau, dressed in a long periwig, and re- 
posing himself upon velvet cushions under a canopy 
of state. The inscription is answerable to the monu- 
ment ; for instead of celebrating the many remarkable 
actions he had performed in the service of his coun- 
try, it acquaints us only with the manner of his death, 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 1 49 

in which it was impossible for him to reap any honor. 
The Dutch, whom we are apt to despise for want of 
genius, show an infinitely greater taste of antiquity and 
politeness in their buildings and works of this nature, 
than what we meet with in those of our own country. 
The monuments of their admirals, which have been 
erected at the public expense, represent them like 
themselves ; and are adorned with rostral crowns and 
naval ornaments, with beautiful festoons of seaweed, 
shells, and coral. 

But to return to our subject. I have left the repos- 
itory of our English kings for the contemplation of 
another day, when I shall find my mind disposed for 
so serious an amusement. I know that entertainments 
of this nature are apt to raise dark and dismal thoughts 
in timorous minds and gloomy imaginations : but for 
my own part, though I am always serious, I do not 
know what it is to be melancholy ; and can therefore 
take a view of nature in her deep and solemn scenes, 
with the same pleasure as in her most gay and de- 
lightful ones. By this means, I can improve myself 
with those objects which others consider with terror. 
When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emo- 
tion of envy dies in me ; when I read the epitaphs of 
the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out ; when 
I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, 
my heart melts with compassion ; when I see the tomb 
of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of 
grieving for those whom we must quickly follow ; when 
I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I 



150 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy 
men that divided the world with their contests and 
disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on 
the little competitions, factions, and debates of man- 
kind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, 
of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred 
years ago, I consider that great day when we shall all 
of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance 
together. — Spectator •, No. 26. 

31. THE VISION OF MIRZAH. 

When I was at Grand Cairo, I picked up several 
Oriental manuscripts, which I have still by me. Among 
others I met with one entitled " The Visions of Mir- 
zah," which I have read over with great pleasure. I 
intend to give it to the public when I have no other 
entertainment for them, and shall begin with the first 
vision, which I have translated word for word, as 
follows : — 

" On the fifth day of the moon, which, according to the cus- 
tom of my forefathers, I always kept holy, after having washed 
myself, and offered up my morning devotions, I ascended the 
high hills of Bagdat, in order to pass the rest of the day in 
meditation and prayer. As I was here airing myself on the 
tops of the mountains, I fell into a profound contemplation on 
the vanity of human life; and passing from one thought to 
another, 'Surely,' said I, 'man is but a shadow, and life a 
dream.' Whilst I was thus musing, I cast my eyes towards 
the summit of a rock that was not far from me, where I dis- 
covered one in the habit of a shepherd, with a little musical 
instrument in his hand. As I looked upon him, he applied it 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 151 

to his lips, and began to play upon it. The sound of it was 
exceeding sweet, and wrought into a variety of tunes that were 
inexpressibly melodious, and altogether different from any thing 
I had ever heard : they put me in mind of those heavenly airs 
that are played to the departed souls of good men upon their 
first arrival in paradise, to wear out the impressions of the last 
agonies, and qualify them for the pleasures of that happy place. 
My heart melted away in secret raptures. 

" I had been often told that the rock before me was the haunt 
of a genius, and that several had been entertained with music 
who had passed by it, but never heard that the musician had 
before made himself visible. When he had raised my thoughts, 
by those transporting airs which he played, to taste the pleas- 
ures of his conversation, as I looked upon him like one aston- 
ished, he beckoned to me, and by the waving of his hand directed 
me to approach the place where he sat. I drew near with that 
reverence which is due to a superior nature ; and as my heart 
was entirely subdued by the captivating strains I had heard, I 
fell down at his feet and wept. The genius smiled upon me 
with a look of compassion and affability that familiarized him 
to my imagination, and at once dispelled all the fears and ap- 
prehensions with which I approached him. He lifted me from 
the ground, and taking me by the hand, * Mirzah,' said he, ' I 
have heard thee in thy soliloquies : follow me.' 

" He then led me to the highest pinnacle of the rock, and 
placing me on the top of it, * Cast thy eyes eastward,* said he, 
4 and tell me what thou seest.' — * I see/ said I, ' a huge valley, 
and a prodigious tide of water rolling through it.* — ' The valley 
that thou seest,' said he, * is the vale of misery, and the tide of 
water that thou seest is part of the great tide of eternity.' — 
* What is the reason,' said I, ' that the tide I see rises out of a 
thick mist at one end, and again loses itself in a thick mist at 
the other ? ' — ' What thou seest,' said he, * is that portion of 
eternity which is called time, measured out by the sun, and 
reaching from the beginning of the world to its consummation. 
Examine now,' said he, * this sea that is thus bounded with dark- 



152 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

ness at both ends, and tell me what thou discoverest in it.' — 'I 
see a bridge,' said I, * standing in the midst of the tide.' — ' That 
bridge thou seest,' said he, * is human life : consider it atten- 
tively.' Upon a more leisurely survey of it, I found that it 
consisted of threescore and ten entire arches, with several 
broken arches, which, added to those that were entire, made up 
the number about an hundred. As I was counting the arches, 
the genius told me that this bridge consisted at first of a thou- 
sand arches ; but that a great flood swept away the rest, and left 
the bridge in the ruinous condition I now beheld it. ' But tell 
me further/ said he, * what thou discoverest on it.' — ' I see mul- 
titudes of people passing over it,' said I, ' and a black cloud 
hanging on each end of it.' As I looked more attentively, I 
saw several of the passengers dropping through the bridge, 
into the great tide that flowed underneath it ; and upon further 
examination, perceived there were innumerable trap-doors that 
lay concealed in the bridge, which the passengers no sooner 
trod upon, but they fell through into the tide, and immediately 
disappeared. These hidden pitfalls were set very thick at the 
entrance of the bridge, so that throngs of people no sooner 
broke through the cloud but many of them fell into them. 
They grew thinner towards the middle, but multiplied and lay 
closer together towards the end of the arches that were entire. 

"There were indeed some persons, but their number was very 
small, that continued a kind of hobbling march on the broken 
arches, but fell through one after another, being quite tired and 
spent with so long a walk. 

" I passed some time in the contemplation of this wonderful 
structure, and the great variety of objects which it presented. 
My heart was filled with a deep melancholy to see several drop- 
ping unexpectedly in the midst of mirth and jollity, and catch- 
ing at every thing that stood by them to save themselves. 
Some were looking up towards the heavens in a thoughtful 
posture, and in the midst of a speculation stumbled, and fell 
out of sight. Multitudes were very busy in the pursuit of 
bubbles that glittered in their eyes and danced before them; 



MORALS AND RELIGION 1 53 

but often, when they thought themselves within the reach of 
them, their footing failed, and down they sank. In this con- 
fusion of objects, I observed some with cimeters in their 
hands, and others with [pills and powders], who ran to and fro 
upon the bridge, thrusting several persons on trap-doors which 
did not seem to lie in their way, and which they might have 
escaped had they not been thus forced upon them. 

"The genius, seeing me indulge myself in this melancholy 
prospect, told me I had dwelt long enough upon it. 'Take 
thine eyes off the bridge,' said he, ' and tell me if thou yet 
seest any thing thou dost not comprehend.' Upon looking up, 
* What mean,' said I, ' those great flights of birds that are per- 
petually hovering about the bridge, and settling upon it from 
time to time ? I see vultures, harpies, ravens, cormorants, and 
among many other feathered creatures several little winged 
boys, that perch in great numbers upon the middle arches.* 
— 'These,' said the genius, 'are envy, avarice, superstition, 
despair, love, with the like cares and passions that infest hu- 
man life.' 

' I here fetched a deep sigh. ' Alas,' said I, ' man was made 
in vain ! How is he given away to misery and mortality ! tor- 
tured in life, and swallowed up in death ! ' The genius, being 
moved with compassion towards me, bid me quit so uncomfort- 
able a prospect. ' Look no more,' said he, l on man in the first 
stage of his existence, in his setting out for eternity; but cast 
thine eye on that thick mist into which the tide bears the sev- 
eral generations of mortals that fall into it.' I directed my 
sight as I was ordered, and (whether or no the good genius 
strengthened it with a supernatural force, or dissipated part of 
the mist that was before too thick for the eye to penetrate) I 
saw the valley opening at the farther end, and spreading forth 
into an immense ocean, that had a huge rock of adamant run- 
ning through the midst of it, and dividing it into two equal 
parts. The clouds still rested on one half of it, insomuch that 
I could discover nothing in it; but the other appeared to me a 
vast ocean planted with innumerable islands, that were covered 



154 READINGS FROM ADDISON 

with fruits and flowers, and interwoven with a thousand little 
shining seas that ran among them. I could see persons dressed 
in glorious habits, with garlands upon their heads, passing among 
the trees, lying down by the sides of the fountains, or resting on 
beds of flowers ; and could hear a confused harmony of sing- 
ing birds, falling waters, human voices, and musical instruments. 
Gladness grew in me upon the discovery of so delightful a 
scene. I wished for the wings of an eagle, that I might fly 
away to those happy seats ; but the genius told me that there 
was no passage to them, except through the gates of death that 
I saw opening every moment upon the bridge. ' The islands,' 
said he, ■ that lie so fresh and green before thee, and with which 
the whole face of the ocean appears spotted as far as thou 
canst see, are more in number than the sands on the sea-shore ; 
there are myriads of islands behind those which thou here dis- 
coverest, reaching farther than thine eye or even thine imagin- 
ation can extend itself. These are the mansions of good men 
after death, who, according to the degree and kinds of virtue 
in which they excelled, are distributed among these several 
islands, which abound with pleasures of different kinds and 
degrees, suitable to the relishes and perfections of those who 
are settled in them ; every island is a paradise accommodated 
to its respective inhabitants. Are not these, O Mirzah, habita- 
tions worth contending for? Does life appear miserable, that 
gives thee opportunities of earning such a reward ? is death to 
be feared, that will convey thee to so happy an existence ? 
Think not man was made in vain, who has such an eternity 
reserved for him.' I gazed with inexpressible pleasure on 
these happy islands. At length, said I, * Show me now, I be- 
seech thee, the secrets that lie hid under those dark clouds 
which cover the ocean on the other side of the rock of ada- 
mant.' The genius making me no answer, I turned about to 
address him a second time, but I found that he had left me : I 
then turned again to the vision which I had been so long 
contemplating ; but instead of the rolling tide, the arched 
bridge, and the happy islands, I saw nothing but the long, hoi- 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 1 55 

low valley of Bagdat, with oxen, sheep, and camels grazing 
upon the sides of it." 

The end of the first vision of Mirzah. — Spectator, 
No. 15Q. 

32. THE GOLDEN SCALES. 

was lately entertaining myself with comparing 
Homer's balance, in which Jupiter is represented as 
weighing the fates of Hector and Achilles, with a 
passage of Virgil, wherein that deity is introduced as 
weighing the fates of Turnus and ./Eneas. I then 
considered how the same way of thinking prevailed in 
the Eastern parts of the world, as in those noble pas- 
sages of Scripture wherein we are told that the great 
king of Babylon, the day before his death, had been 
weighed in the balance and been found wanting. 
In other places of the holy writings, the Almighty is 
described as weighing the mountains in scales, making 
the weight for the winds, knowing the balancings of the 
clouds ; and in others, as weighing the actions of men, 
and laying their calamities together in a balance. Mil- 
ton, as I have observed in a former paper, had an eye 
to several of those foregoing instances, in that beautiful 
description wherein he represents the archangel and 
the evil spirit as addressing themselves for the com- 
bat, but parted by the balance which appeared in the 
heavens, and weighed the consequences of such a 
battle. 



156 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

" The Eternal, to prevent such horrid fray, 
Hung forth in heaven his golden scales, yet seen 
Betwixt Astraea and the Scorpion sign, 
Wherein all things created first he weighed, 
The pendulous round earth, with balanced air 
In counterpoise, now ponders all events, 
Battles and realms : in these he put two weights, 
The sequel each of parting and of fight; 
The latter quick up flew, and kicked the beam ; 
Which Gabriel spying, thus bespake the fiend: — 

" Satan, I know thy strength, and thou know'st mine, 
Neither our own, but given. What folly, then, 
To boast what arms can do ? since thine no more 
Than Heaven permits ; nor mine, though doubled now 
To trample thee as mire. For proof look up, 
And read thy lot in yon celestial sign, 
Where thou art weighed, and shown how light, how weak, 
If thou resist. — The fiend looked up, and knew 
His mounted scale aloft : nor more ; but fled 
Murmuring, and with him fled the shades of night." * 

These several amusing thoughts having taken pos- 
session of my mind some time before I went to sleep, 
and mingling themselves with my ordinary ideas, raised 
in my imagination a very odd kind of vision. I was, 
methought, replaced in my study, and seated in my 
elbow-chair, where I had indulged the foregoing specu- 
lations, with my lamp burning by me as usual. Whilst 
I was here meditating on several subjects of morality, 
and considering the nature of many virtues and vices, 
as materials for those discourses with which I daily 
entertain the public, I saw, methought, a pair of golden 

Paradise Lost, Book IV., ad Jin. 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 1 57 

scales hanging by a chain of the same metal over the 
table that stood before me ; when on a sudden there 
were great heaps of weights thrown down on each side 
of them. I found, upon examining these weights, they 
showed the value of every thing that is in esteem 
among men. I made an essay of them by putting the 
weight of wisdom in one scale, and that of riches in 
another ; upon which the latter, to show its compara- 
tive lightness, immediately flew up, and kicked the 
beam. 

But, before I proceed, I must inform my reader, that 
these weights did not exert their natural gravity till 
they were laid in the golden balance, insomuch that 
I could not guess which was light or heavy whilst I 
held them in my hand. This I found by several in- 
stances ; for upon my laying a weight in one of the 
scales, which was inscribed by the word Eternity, 
though I threw in that of time, prosperity, affliction, 
wealth, poverty, interest, success, with many other 
weights, which in my hand seemed very ponderous, 
they were not able to stir the opposite balance, nor 
could they have prevailed, though assisted with the 
weight of the sun, the stars, and the earth. 

Upon emptying the scales, I laid several titles and 
honors, with pomps, triumphs, and many weights of 
the like nature, in one of them ; and seeing a little 
glittering weight lie by me, I threw it accidentally into 
the other scale, when, to my great surprise, it proved 
so exact a counterpoise, that it kept the balance in an 
equilibrium. This little glittering weight was inscribed 



158 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

upon the edges of it with the word Vanity. I found 
there were several other weights which were equally 
heavy, and exact counterpoises to one another ; a few 
of them I tried, as avarice and poverty, riches and 
content, with some others. 

There were likewise several weights that were of the 
same figure, and seemed to correspond with each other, 
but were entirely different when thrown into the scales ; 
as, religion and hypocrisy, pedantry and learning, wit 
and vivacity, superstition and devotion, gravity and 
wisdom, with many others. 

I observed one particular weight, lettered on both 
sides, and, upon applying myself to the reading of it, 
I found on one side written, " In the dialect of men," 
and underneath it, CALAMITIES ; on the other side 
was written, " In the language of the gods," and under- 
neath, BLESSINGS. I found the intrinsic value of 
this weight to be much greater than I imagined ; for 
it overpowered health, wealth, good fortune, and many 
other weights, which were much more ponderous in 
my hand than the other. 

There is a saying among the Scots, that " An ounce 
of mother wit is worth a pound of clergy." I was 
sensible of the truth of this saying, when I saw the 
difference between the weight of natural parts and that 
of learning. The observation which I made upon 
these two weights opened to me a new field of dis- 
coveries; for notwithstanding the weight of natural 
parts was much heavier than that of learning, I ob- 
served that it weighed an hundred times heavier than 



MORALS AND RELIGION 1 59 

it did before, when I put learning into the same scale 
with it. I made the same observation upon faith and 
morality; for notwithstanding the latter outweighed 
the former separately, it received a thousand times 
more additional weight from its conjunction with the 
former than what it had by itself. This odd phenome- 
non showed itself in other particulars, as in wit and 
judgment, philosophy and religion, justice and human- 
ity, zeal and charity, depth of sense and perspicuity of 
style, with innumerable other particulars too long to be 
mentioned in this paper. 

As a dream seldom fails of dashing seriousness with 
impertinence, mirth with gravity, me thought I made 
several other experiments of a more ludicrous nature : 
by one of which I found that an English octavo was 
very often heavier than a French folio ; and by another, 
that an old Greek or Latin author weighed down a 
whole library of moderns. Seeing one of my " Specta- 
tors" lying by me, I laid it into one of the scales, and 
flung a two-penny piece into the other : the reader will 
not inquire into the event, if he remembers the first 
trial which I have recorded in this paper. I after- 
wards threw both the sexes into the balance ; but, as it 
is not for my interest to disoblige either of them, I 
shall desire to be excused from telling the result of this 
experiment. Having an opportunity of this nature in 
my hands, I could not forbear throwing into one scale 
the principles of a Tory, and into the other those of a 
Whig; but, as I have all along declared this to be a 
neutral paper, I shall likewise desire to be silent under 



l6o READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

this head also, — though, upon examining one of the 
weights, I saw the word TEKEL engraven on it in 
capital letters. 

I made many other experiments; and, though I 
have not room for them all in this day's speculation, 
I may perhaps reserve them for another. I shall only 
add, that upon my awaking I was sorry to find my 
golden scales vanished, but resolved for the future to 
learn this lesson from them : Not to despise or value 
any things for their appearances, but to regulate my 
esteem and passions towards them according to their 
real and intrinsic value. — Spectator, No. 463. 

33. PURITANIC PIETY. 

About an age ago it was the fashion in England, for 
every one that would be thought religious, to throw as 
much sanctity as possible into his face, and in particu- 
lar to abstain from all appearances of mirth and pleas- 
antry, which were looked upon as the marks of a carnal 
mind. The saint was of a sorrowful countenance, and 
generally eaten up with spleen and melancholy. A 
gentleman, who was lately a great ornament to the 
learned world, has diverted me more than once with 
an account of the reception which he met with from 
a very famous Independent minister, who was head of 
a college in those times. This gentleman was then a 
young adventurer in the republic of letters, and just 1 
fitted out for the university with a good cargo of Latin 
and Greek. His friends were resolved that he should 
try his fortune at an election which was drawing near 



MORALS AND RELIGION. l6l 

in the college, of which the Independent minister 
whom I have before mentioned was governor. The 
youth, according to custom, waited on him in order 
to be examined. He was received at the door by a 
servant, who was one of that gloomy generation that 
were then in fashion. He conducted him, with great 
silence and seriousness, to a long gallery which was 
darkened at noonday, and had only a single candle 
burning in it. After a short stay in this melancholy 
apartment, he was led into a chamber hung with black, 
where he entertained himself for some time by the 
glimmering of a taper, till at length the head of the 
college came out to him from an inner room, with 
half a dozen nightcaps upon his head, and religious 
horror in his countenance. The young man trembled ; 
but his fears increased, when, instead of being asked 
what progress he had made in learning, he was exam- 
ined how he abounded in grace. His Latin and 
Greek stood him in little stead : he was to give an 
account only of the state of his soul ; whether he was 
of the number of the elect ; what was the occasion of 
his conversion ; upon what day of the month, and hour 
of the day, it happened ; how it was carried on, and 
when completed. The whole examination was summed 
up with one short question ; namely, Whether he was 
prepared for death ? The boy, who had been bred 
•up by honest parents, was frighted out of his wits at 
the solemnity of the proceeding, and by the last dread- 
ful interrogatory \ so that, upon making his escape out 
of the house of mourning, he could never be brought 



1 62 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

a second time to the examination, as not being able 
to go through the terrors of it. 

Notwithstanding this general form and outside of 
religion is pretty well worn out among us, there are 
many persons, who, by a natural uncheerfulness of 
heart, mistaken notions of piety, or weakness of under- 
standing, love to indulge this uncomfortable way of 
life, and give up themselves a prey to grief and melan- 
choly. Superstitious fears and groundless scruples cut 
them off from the pleasures of conversation, and all 
those social entertainments which are not only inno- 
cent, but laudable ; as if mirth were made for repro- 
bates, and cheerfulness of heart denied those who are 
the only persons that have a proper title to it. 

Sombrius is one of these sons of sorrow. He thinks 
himself obliged in duty to be sad and disconsolate. 
He looks on a sudden fit of laughter as a breach of 
his baptismal vow. An innocent jest startles him like 
blasphemy. Tell him of one who is advanced to a 
title of honor, he lifts up his hands and eyes ; describe 
a public ceremony, he shakes his head ; show him a 
gay equipage, he blesses himself. All the little orna- 
ments of life are pomps and vanities. Mirth is wan- 
ton, and wit profane. He is scandalized at youth for 
being lively, and at childhood for being playful. He 
sits at a christening, or a marriage- feast, as at a funeral ; 
sighs at the conclusion of a merry story, and grows 
devout when the rest of the company grow pleas- 
ant. After all, Sombrius is a religious man, and 
would have behaved himself very properly, had he 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 1 63 

lived when Christianity was under a general persecu- 
tion. 

I would by no means presume to tax such charac- 
ters with hypocrisy, as is done too frequently ; that 
being a vice which I think none but he who knows 
the secrets of men's hearts should pretend to dis- 
cover in another, where the proofs of it do not amount 
to a demonstration. On the contrary, as there are 
many excellent persons who are weighed down by 
this habitual sorrow of heart, they rather deserve our 
compassion than our reproaches. I think, however, 
they would do well to consider whether such a be- 
havior does not deter men from a religious life, by 
representing it as an unsociable state, that extinguishes 
all joy and gladness, darkens the face ofnature, and 
destroys the relish of being itself. 

I have, in former papers, shown how great a tend- 
ency there is to cheerfulness in religion, and how 
such a frame of mind is not only the most lovely, but 
the most commendable in a virtuous person. In 
short, those who represent religion in so unamiable a 
light are like the spies sent by Moses to make a dis- 
covery of the land of promise, when by their reports 
they discouraged the people from entering upon it. 
Those who show us the joy, the cheerfulness, the good- 
humor, that naturally spring up in this happy state, 
are like the spies bringing along with them the clus- 
ters of grapes and delicious fruits, that might invite 
their companions into the pleasant country which pro- 
duced them. 



164 READINGS FROM ADDISON, 

An eminent Pagan writer x has made a discourse to 
show that the atheist, who denies a God, does him 
less dishonor than the man who owns his being, but 
at the same time believes him to be cruel, hard to 
please, and terrible to human nature. For my own 
part, says he, I would rather it should be said of me, 
that there was never any such man as Plutarch, than 
that Plutarch was ill-natured, capricious, or inhumane. 

If we may believe our logicians, man is distinguished 
from all other creatures by the faculty of laughter. 
He has a heart capable of mirth, and naturally dis- 
posed to it. It is not the business of virtue to extir- 
pate the affections of the mind, but to regulate them. 
It may moderate and restrain, but was not designed 
to banish gladness from the heart of man. Religion 
contracts the circle of our pleasures, but leaves it wide 
enough for her votaries to expatiate in. The contem- 
plation of the Divine Being, and the exercise of virtue, 
are in their own nature so far from excluding all glad- 
ness of heart, that they are perpetual sources of it. 
In a word, the true spirit of religion cheers as well as 
composes the soul; it banishes indeed all levity of 
behavior, all vicious and dissolute mirth, but in ex- 
change fills the mind with a perpetual serenity, unin- 
terrupted cheerfulness, and an habitual inclination to 
please others, as well as to be pleased in itself. — 
Spectator, No. 494. 

1 Plutarch, De Suf>crstitione. 



MORALS AND RELIGION. l6$ 

34. SATURDAY SERMON ON CHEERFULNESS AND MIRTH. 

I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The 
latter I consider as an act, the former as a habit of 
the mind. Mirth is short and transient,, cheerfulness 
fixed and permanent. Those are often raised into 
the greatest transports of mirth, who are subject to the 
greatest depressions of melancholy : on the contrary, 
cheerfulness, though it does not give the mind such 
an exquisite gladness, prevents us from falling into any 
depths of sorrow. Mirth is like a flash of lightning, 
that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for 
a moment ; cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight 
in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual 
serenity. 

Men of austere principles look upon mirth as too 
wanton and dissolute for a state of probation, and as 
filled with a certain triumph and insolence of heart, 
that is inconsistent with a life which is every moment 
obnoxious to the greatest dangers. Writers of this com- 
plexion have observed, that the sacred Person who was 
the great pattern of perfection was never seen to laugh. 

Cheerfulness of mind is not liable to any of these 
exceptions : it is of a serious and composed nature ; 
it does not throw the mind into a condition improper 
for the present state of humanity, and is very con- 
spicuous in the characters of those who are looked 
upon as the greatest philosophers among the heathens, 
as well as among those who have been deservedly es- 
teemed as saints and holy men among Christians. 



1 66 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

If we consider cheerfulness in three lights, with 
regard to ourselves, to those we converse with, and to 
the great Author of our being, it will not a little rec- 
ommend itself on each of these accounts. The man 
who is possessed of this excellent frame of mind is 
not only easy in his thoughts, but a perfect master of 
all the powers and faculties of his soul ; his imagina- 
tion is always clear, and his judgment undisturbed; 
his temper is even and unruffled, whether in action or 
in solitude. He comes with a relish to all those goods 
which nature has provided for him, tastes all the pleas- 
ures of the creation which are poured about him, and 
does not feel the full weight of those accidental evils 
which may befall him. 

If we consider him in relation to the persons whom 
he converses with, it naturally produces love and good- 
will towards him. A cheerful mind is not only dis- 
posed to be affable and obliging, but raises the same 
good humor in those who come within its influence. 
A man finds himself pleased, he does not know why, 
with the cheerfulness of his companion : it is like a 
sudden sunshine that awakens a secret delight in the 
mind, without her attending to it : the heart rejoices 
of its own accord, and naturally flows out into friend- 
ship and benevolence towards the person who has so 
kindly an effect upon it. 

When I consider this cheerful state of mind in its 
third relation, I cannot but look upon it as a constant 
habitual gratitude to the great Author of nature. An 
inward cheerfulness is an implicit praise and thanks- 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 1 67 

giving to Providence under all its dispensations : it is 
a kind of acquiescence in the state wherein we are 
placed, and a secret approbation of the Divine will in 
his conduct towards men. 

There are but two things, which, in my opinion, can 
reasonably deprive us of this cheerfulness of heart. 
The first of these is the sense of guilt. A man who 
lives in a state of vice and impenitence can have no 
title to that evenness and tranquillity of mind which is 
the health of the soul, and the natural effect of virtue 
and innocence. Cheerfulness in an ill man deserves 
a harder name than language can furnish us with, and 
is many degrees beyond what we commonly call folly 
or madness. 

Atheism, by which I mean a disbelief of a Supreme 
Being, and consequently of a future state, under what- 
soever titles it shelters itself, may likewise very reason- 
ably deprive a man of this cheerfulness of temper. 
There is something so particularly gloomy and offen- 
sive to human nature in the prospect of non-existence, 
that I cannot but wonder, with many excellent writers, 
how it is possible for a man to outlive the expectation 
of it. For my own part, I think the being of a God 
is so little to be doubted, that it is almost the only 
truth we are sure of, and such a truth as we meet with 
in every object, in every occurrence, and in every 
thought. If we look into the characters of this tribe 
of infidels, we generally find they are made up of 
pride, spleen, and cavil. It is indeed no wonder that 
men who are uneasy to themselves should be so to the 



1 68 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

rest of the world ; and how is it possible for a man 
to be otherwise than uneasy in himself, who is in dan- 
ger every moment of losing his entire existence, and 
dropping into nothing? 

The vicious man and atheist have therefore no pre- 
tence to cheerfulness, and would act very unreasonably 
should they endeavor after it. It is impossible for 
any one to live in good-humor, and enjoy his present 
existence, who is apprehensive either of torment or of 
annihilation, — of being miserable, or of not being at 
all. 

After having mentioned these two great principles, 
which are destructive of cheerfulness in their own 
nature, as well as in right reason, I cannot think of 
any other that ought to banish this happy temper from 
a virtuous mind. Pain and sickness, shame and re- 
proach, poverty and old age, nay, death itself, consid- 
ering the shortness of their duration, and the advantage 
we may reap from them, do not deserve the name of 
evils : a good mind may bear up under them with 
fortitude, with indolence, and with cheerfulness of 
heart. The tossing of a tempest does not discom- 
pose him, which he is sure will bring him to a joyful 
harbor. 

A man who uses his best endeavors to live accord- 
ing to the dictates of virtue and right reason has two 
perpetual sources of cheerfulness, in the consideration 
of his own nature, and of that Being on whom he 
has a dependence. If he looks into himself, he can- 
not but rejoice in that existence which is so lately 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 1 69 

bestowed upon him, and which, after millions of ages, 
will be still new, and still in its beginning. How many 
self- congratulations naturally arise in the mind, when 
it reflects on this its entrance into eternity, when it 
takes a view of those improvable faculties, which in 
a few years, and even at his first setting out, have 
made so considerable a progress, and which will be 
still receiving an increase of perfection, and conse- 
quently an increase of happiness ? The consciousness 
of such a being spreads a perpetual diffusion of joy 
through the soul of a virtuous man, and makes him 
look upon himself every moment as more happy than 
he knows how to conceive. 

The second source of cheerfulness, to a good mind, 
is its consideration of that Being on whom we have 
our dependence, and in whom, though we behold him 
as yet but in the first faint discoveries of his perfec- 
tions, we see every thing that we can imagine as great, 
glorious, or amiable. We find ourselves everywhere 
upheld by his goodness, and surrounded with an im- 
mensity of love and mercy. In short, we depend 
upon a Being whose power qualifies him to make us 
happy by an infinity of means, whose goodness and 
truth engage him to make those happy who desire it 
of him, and whose unchangeableness will secure us in 
this happiness to all eternity. 

Such considerations, which every one should per- 
petually cherish in his thoughts, will banish from us 
all that secret heaviness of heart which unthinking 
men are subject to when they lie under no real afflic- 



170 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

tion, all that anguish which we may feel from any evil 
that actually oppresses us, to which I may likewise 
add those little cracklings of mirth and folly that are 
apter to betray virtue than support it ; and establish in 
us such an even and cheerful temper, as makes us 
pleasing to ourselves, to those with whom we con- 
verse, and to Him whom we were made to please. — 
Spectator, No. 381. 

35. SATURDAY SERMON ON RECKONING OUR NEIGHBORS' 
MISFORTUNES AS JUDGMENTS. 

We cannot be guilty of a greater act of uncharitable- 
ness, than to interpret the afflictions which befall our 
neighbors, as punishments and judgments. It aggra- 
vates the evil to him who suffers, when he looks upon 
himself as the mark of Divine vengeance, and abates 
the compassion of those towards him, who regard him 
in so dreadful a light. The humor of turning every 
misfortune into a judgment proceeds from wrong 
notions of religion, which, in its own nature, produces 
good-will towards men, and puts the mildest construc- 
tion upon every accident that befalls them. In this 
case, therefore, it is not religion that sours a man's 
temper, but it is his temper that sours his religion : 
people of gloomy, uncheerful imaginations, or of envi- 
ous, malignant tempers, whatever kind of life they are 
engaged in, will discover their natural tincture of mind 
in all their thoughts, words, and actions. As the finest 
wines have often the taste of the soil, so even the most 
religious thoughts often draw something that is par- 



MORALS AND RELIGION, \J\ 

ticular from the constitution of the mind in which they 
arise. When folly or superstition strikes in with this 
natural depravity of temper, it is not in the power even 
of religion itself, to preserve the character of the per- 
son who is possessed with it from appearing highly 
absurd and ridiculous. 

An old maiden gentlewoman, whom I shall conceal 
under the name of Nemesis, is the greatest discoverer 
of judgments that I have met with. She can tell you 
what sin it was that set such a man's house on fire, or 
blew down his barns. Talk to her of an unfortunate 
young lady that hath lost her beauty by the small-pox : 
she fetches a deep sigh, and tells you that when she 
had a fine face she was always looking on it in her 
glass. Tell her of a piece of good fortune that has 
befallen one of her acquaintance ; and she wishes it 
may prosper with her, but her mother used one of her 
nieces very barbarously. Her usual remarks turn upon 
people who had great estates, but never enjoyed them, 
by reason of some flaw in their own or their fathers' 
behavior. She can give you the reason why such a 
one died childless ; why such a one was cut off in the 
flower of his youth ; why such a one was unhappy in 
her marriage ; why one broke his leg in such a particu- 
lar spot of ground ; and why another was killed with a 
back-sword, rather than with any other kind of weapon. 
She has a crime for every misfortune that can befall 
any of her acquaintance ; and when she hears of a 
robbery that has been made, or a murder that has 
been committed, enlarges more on the guilt of the suf- 



172 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

fering person than on that of the thief or assassin. In 
short, she is so good a Christian, that whatever happens 
to herself is a trial, and whatever happens to her neigh- 
bors is a judgment. 

The very description of this folly, in ordinary life, is 
sufficient to expose it ; but when it appears in a pomp 
and dignity of style, it is very apt to amuse and terrify 
the mind of the reader. Herodotus and Plutarch very 
often apply their judgments as impertinently as the old 
woman I have before mentioned, though their manner 
of relating them makes the folly itself appear venerable. 
Indeed, most historians, as well Christian as Pagan, 
have fallen into this idle superstition, and spoken of ill 
success, unforeseen disasters, and terrible events, as if 
they had been let into the secrets of Providence, and 
made acquainted with that private conduct by which 
the world is governed. One would think several of 
our own historians in particular had many revelations 
of this kind made to them. Our old English monks 
seldom let any of their kings depart in peace who had 
endeavored to diminish the power or wealth of which 
the ecclesiastics were in those times possessed. Wil- 
liam the Conqueror's race generally found their judg- 
ments in the New Forest, where their fathers had 
pulled down churches and monasteries. In short, 
read one of the chronicles written by an author of this 
frame of mind, and you would think you were reading 
an history of the kings of Israel and Judah, where the 
historians were actually inspired, and where, by a par- 
ticular scheme of Providence, the kings were distin- 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 1 73 

guished by judgments or blessings, according as they 
promoted idolatry or the worship of the true God. 

I cannot but look upon this manner of judging upon 
misfortunes not only to be very uncharitable in regard 
to the persons whom they befall, but very presumptuous 
in regard to him who is supposed to inflict them. It 
is a strong argument for a state of retribution here- 
after, that in this world virtuous persons are very often 
unfortunate, and vicious persons prosperous ; which is 
wholly repugnant to the nature of a Being who appears 
infinitely wise and good in all his works, unless we may 
suppose that such a promiscuous and undistinguished 
distribution of good and evil, which was necessary for 
carrying on the designs of Providence in this life, will 
be rectified and made amends for in another. We 
are not therefore to expect that fire should fall from 
heaven in the ordinary course of Providence ; nor, 
when we see triumphant guilt or depressed virtue in 
particular persons, that Omnipotence will make bare 
its holy arm in defence of the one or punishment of 
the other. It is sufficient that there is a day set apart 
for the hearing and requiting of both according to 
their respective merits. 1 — Spectator, No. 483. 

36. SATURDAY SERMON ON AIDS TO FAITH. 
(Concluding paragraph.) 

The Supreme Being has made the best arguments 
for his own existence in the formation of the heavens 
and earth ; and these are arguments which a man of 

1 This paper is abridged here by the omission of two paragraphs. 



174 READINGS FROM ADDISON. 

sense cannot forbear attending to, who is out of the 
noise and hurry of human affairs. Aristotle says, that 
should a man live under ground, and there converse 
with works of art and mechanism, and should after- 
wards be brought up into the open day, and see the 
several glories of the heaven and earth, he would im- 
mediately pronounce them the works of such a being 
as we define God to be. The Psalmist has very beau- 
tiful strokes of poetry to this purpose in that exalted 
strain, " The heavens declare the glory of God : and 
the firmament showeth his handywork. One day tell- 
eth another : and one night certifleth another. There 
is neither speech nor language : but their voices are 
heard among them. Their sound is gone out into 
all the lands : and their words unto the ends of the 
world." As such a bold and sublime manner of 
thinking furnished very noble matter for an ode, the 
reader may see it wrought into the following one. 



The spacious firmament on high, 

With all the blue ethereal sky, 

And spangled heavens, a shining frame, 

Their great original proclaim : 

The unwearied sun, from day to day, 

Does his Creator's power display, 

And publishes to every land 

The work of an almighty hand. 

ii. 
Soon as the evening shades prevail, 
The moon takes up the wondrous tale, 



MORALS AND RELIGION. 1 75 

And nightly to the listening earth 

Repeats the story of her birth ; 

Whilst all the stars that round her burn, 

And all the planets in their turn, 

Confirm the tidings as they roll, 

And spread the truth from pole to pole. 

in. 
What though, in solemn silence, all 
Move round the dark terrestrial ball ? 
What though nor real voice nor sound 
Amid their radiant orbs be found ? 
In reason's ear they all rejoice, 
And utter forth a glorious voice, 
Forever singing, as they shine, 
" The hand that made us is divine." 

Spectator y No. 463. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




III 
014 157 404 8 




l v 



■ 




■ 




